This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. Joining us today is Steve Rosenau, vice president of agriculture for American Crystal Sugar Beet Company. Steve will give us a recap of this year's sugar beet crop including crop progress and projections. Steve, prepile is underway in your area. How are things going?

Yep. Prepile is going really well. We started the 13th August and continue through, you know, harvest which would be the end of this month. October 1st is when we'd start full harvest. And so this time of year, as a reminder to everyone, we harvest just enough to keep the factories supplied with beets, but don't try to harvest any more than that because weather isn't conducive in order to store beets for a long period of time right now.

That was a bit of a dark spot last year.

Correct. Yeah. With the variability in temperature, you try to manage inventories through rain events, through heat events and then factories slicing at high levels at this time of year.

How did things go early in the season?

In terms of the spring, spring came early this year. You know, if you remember last year, we were 10 days late with regards to planting. And by late I mean, our average planting date is May 5th. This year we got in on average April 27th. So 10 days the other way. About 3 weeks different than last year. So that's provided a longer growing season for the beets. In terms of the weather though, April May, things got off to a slower start. We were in the ground early but seemed like it took a little while before, germination occurred because we didn't have that excessive heat like we got last year in May. But overall, we've got a great stand count in terms of the quantity of plants that emerge from seed and so there are a lot of beets out there. I've had good growing conditions. Nighttime lows have been higher than average and so that's just conducive for that crop to continue growing. So it's been favorable and the crop is responding.

Have insects or disease been a problem this year?

You know, this year we've had, with the exception of some areas, I know up in our Warren area, they've received excessive rainfall. It seems like every storm system is trained through that area. But most of the valley were on pace for average rainfall. We've had periods where, you know, in that July time frame with the heat, we were a little dry up north. But then, a couple weeks ago, we got 2, 2 and a half inches up and down the valley to satisfy that. And so with regards to, you know, disease and insects, flies early on, we didn't see peak activity like we have in past years. And so damage was low with regards to the feeding that they do. Same token, our growers also did a fantastic job of managing those insects with the tools that they've got in their toolbox in terms of the application of insecticides. And in terms of other diseases, Cercospora is a big one for us but, you know, the weather was conducive this year where we really haven't seen large areas that have been impacted by Cercospora. Once again, we've got new technology with beet seed, as well as growers following the best practices in terms of getting out and applying early with their fungicides and then following the program to make sure that the timing is right as well with follow-up applications.

I suppose the truth is in the harvest. What are your expectations?

Each year, we do 5 rip pulls and then we bring those in and analyze those. The first one starts the last week in July and the last one will occur next Monday. So we've done 4 so far. The 4th one was a record for us. So already, the fields that we have sample plots set up that we take samples from average 28.8 tons per acre for this time of year. But the models that we've got forecasting out from here to the end, you know, it looks like, you know, this year could eclipse last year. Last year was our record at 31.9. There's still a whole month to go yet. Weather will determine the final outcome, but certainly the potential is there for, another record crop.

Thanks, Steve. Our guest has been Steve Rosenau, vice president of agriculture for American Crystal Sugar Beet Company. This has been the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.