This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. The Red River Valley is large enough to offer a distinct variety of growing conditions for sugar beet. Let's go south for an update from Mark Blomquist, director of research for the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative. Mark, how did the spring planting season go in your area this year?

This spring, SMBSC experienced one of the earliest planting windows of the past several seasons. The first planting window opened on April 12th and went until April 15th. Rainfall of 1 and a half to 2 inches began falling on the evening of 15th and over the next several days which put a stop to sugar beet planting. During this 4 day planting window, 55% of the SMBSC crop was planted. The second planting window was April 22nd to 25th and during the second planting window another 40% of the crop was planted. In total, 95% of the SMBSC crop was planted by April 25th. This is an excellent planting date for us and one of the top 5 in the past 20 years.

How has the season progressed in the southern part of the valley?

Rainfall has been abundant since late April. As you move south and east across the SMBSC growing area, rainfall totals for the growing season increase. But too much precipitation has been the issue across the entire growing area so far this summer. In the areas most affected by the above normal rainfall, we have numerous drown out areas and have also seen stunted beets and increased presence of root diseases. The sugar beet fields in the northern portion of our growing area generally have more even growth across the fields and the yield potential looks better across these areas. Weed control was generally pretty good across the growing area early in the season. We're now seeing waterhemp break through the canopy in some fields, especially in fields where the sugar beet canopy was slow to develop and slow to close the rows due to stunting from the excess rainfall. The July storms also splash soil onto the leaves, and we've seen more bacterial leaf blight this summer than in the past several seasons.

Is your area getting enough moisture to stimulate cercospora leaf spot growth?

Excessive rainfall has led to high humidity across the growing area most of the summer. This moisture, along with moderate temperatures, has produced very high CLS disease index values throughout July early August. Timely fungicide applications and variety resistance to the disease are helping to hold down the levels of CLS present in most fields. We will continue to monitor the disease development and will be important to keep fungicide protection on fields during the remainder of August and possibly early September.

I know it's early, but when will the pre pile harvest begin at the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, and what are the expectations for the crop?

We are currently planning to begin pre pile harvest on Monday, August 26th. This is 2 weeks later than we originally planned to allow the crop to continue to grow. Root samples taken by our agriculturalists during July August indicate we have the potential for a final crop yield in the upper twenties for tons per acre.

Mark, any final thoughts?

Harvest is a busy time of year for everyone. We'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to be safe in the fields, on the roads, and at the receiving stations this harvest season.

Thanks, Mark. Our guest has been Mark Bloomquist, director of research for the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative. This has been the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.