This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. We've entered the dry and hot weather portion of summer. Sugar beet crops up and down the valley respond differently depending on the conditions. We have an update from the Mindak Farmers Cooperative area. Emma Burt is the research agronomist for the MnDak Farmers Cooperative. Emma, how are the sugar beets progressing in your area?

Things are looking good in the MnDak area. Our earliest planted fields especially are looking great. We definitely hit canopy closure across majority of the MinDak area. With the wet spring and season so far, our tiled fields are very much showing their benefit this year. Weed control this year was good to excellent with the all the rain that we had to activate our soil applied herbicides. So any weed escapes that we had or would have have been taken care of via some hand labor and severe cases or maybe an ultra blazer application. We do have some drown out areas, obviously, with the rain that we have this season. And those will be the first places to keep an eye on when it comes to root rots, especially with this hotter weather we've got got coming in. And then insect control, really very good as well. We had moderate pressure, especially with the Sugar Beet Maggot this season. And our peak was right around that 2nd week of June, pretty similar to to the rest of the region.

How severe is the battle with cercospora leaf spot so far?

With cercospora MinDak, most of our growers have completed their first Triazole plus EBDC application or they will be completing that probably sometime this week. If they've completed that, they're in our first extended interval and then they will rotate in about 3 weeks to a 10 plus EBDC tank mix. And then after that, we'll hit another extended interval of about 3 ish weeks and then they'll go back to a Triazole plus EBDC tank mix there. And then, when it comes to the Triazoles, we're not calling out specific products within our program this season, rather, we're just reminding growers of the cross resistance that has been found in our Cercospora sampling done by USDA and NDSU. So we've got cross resistance amongst eminent, Domark, Minerva, Proline or Phobos. So if you've used one of those products in your first triazole application, we don't wanna use one of those in our next triazole application. Rather, you'd wanna use an Inspire or a Provisal product. And then vice versa, if you've used Inspire or Provisal, don't rotate to that for your second Triazole application. Use one of the eminent, Domark, Minerva, Proline or Phobos products instead.

Emma, where are you at with sampling?

So our ag staff is actually going out this week and they will be sampling the first of 3 sampling dates for the crop. So this will be our first peek under the hood, if you will, at what we can expect this fall at harvest time.

Thanks, Emma. Our guest has been Emma Burt, research agronomist for the MinDak Farmers Cooperative. This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.