This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. No matter the crop when a hailstorm hits farming strategies change. Can a hailstorm alter the direction of a sugar beet crop? To find some answers, researchers must conduct simulated hail events. Tom Peters, NDSU and University of Minnesota Extension Sugar Beet Agronomist has more information. Tom, how do you conduct simulated hail research? I mean, you would think by now we'd know everything about hail.

Bruce, there's a lot of different ways you can conduct hail research. There's some laboratories with very sophisticated machinery, where they literally blow ice on plants to try to simulate hail. There's others that have modified machinery to beat up the canopy to simulate hail. We went old school. We went out there with shears, and we cut leaves off to simulate a 10% loss of canopy, a 40, a 50, an 80, or a 100%. And then second, on the question of why, our hybrids, our sugar beet hybrids have changed. A lot of the original hale research was done in Montana, in Idaho, in Utah, some at NDSU, and that work was done in the forties, the fifties, and the sixties. Now, the hybrids that they used in those experiments are different than what we have today. The work that we did in the last 3 or 4 years is to simulate hail damage with today's hybrids.

A simulated hail event done in early July versus late August. Is there a difference?

Well, there is. First of all, the amount of defoliation that you have will influence the loss of root yield. A 25% loss of canopy will cause less root yield loss than a 60 or an 80 or a 100. I think that's logical. But what was interesting about the research is that the hail damage that we simulated in July actually caused more yield loss than simulated loss of stand in August or in late August, early September. The loss of root yield was greatest early on and became less the closer that you came to harvest. And I think that's logical as well. If we had hail the week before we harvested, there would be essentially no loss of root yield.

Tom, what about the percentage of sucrose content? Does it track the same as root yield?

Yeah. That's the interesting thing about the research. As we increase the defoliation, we saw more loss of sucrose. However, loss of sucrose tended to become greater the closer we got to harvest. So it was the opposite of the root yield loss where we had more root yield loss in July than we had in August. Well, we had more sucrose loss in August and late August than we had in early July. So it's almost inverse as compared to the root yield data.

Tom, what about diseases? Are sugar beets hit with hail more sensitive to diseases?

We tell our growers, if you do experience a hailstorm, you have to actively manage for foliar diseases especially. And the reason for that is you bruise these leaves and stems and everything. So being very, very regular with your foliar disease programs. 1 of the growers that experienced a hail event in July asked, well, what about soil borne diseases? And the hailstones were so big that they literally pitted the ground. So he was worried that those hailstones might have bruised the roots as well. Now we don't have that research. We usually recommend 1 soil borne fungicide program. We've never recommended more than 1 during the season, even after a hailstorm.

Thanks, Tom. Our guest has been Tom Peters, NDSU and University of Minnesota Extension Sugar Beet Agronomist. This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.