Michigan’s unseasonably warm temperatures in late October and early November idled sugarbeet harvesters at times, putting them on a stop-and-go schedule, as the regular harvest campaign requires beets to be piled at cooler temperatures.

Despite the interruptions, harvest was just over half complete Nov. 1, with about 78,000 of the 142,000 acres of contracted sugarbeets delivered to Michigan Sugar Co.’s four processing facilities.

It’s going to be a mixed bag with both tonnage and sugar content this year, according to grower Dennis Gardner — who farms about 1,800 acres, including 500 acres of sugarbeets, as well as corn, soybeans, wheat and cucumbers — in Yale. With his Ropa harvester, he also has a custom, beet-harvesting operation of 600 acres.

He started sugarbeet harvest Aug. 20 with a custom harvest. “Tonnage was phenomenal — close to 40 tons per acre — but the sugar was way down, like 12%,” he says of the early dig, where farmers can voluntarily sign up to harvest just enough beets to keep a steady flow at the processing plants.

“We’ve seen the sugar come up since then, with about 18% on our farm,” he adds, while noting his tonnage has been a bit disappointing in the mid-20s in tons per acre.

Michigan Sugar Co. (MSC) began its permanent pile harvest on Oct. 24, and as of Nov. 1, growers have delivered more than 2.3 million tons of beets and 1.4 million tons were sliced at the grower-owned facilities.

In Michigan’s Great Lakes Bay Region and Thumb, where most beets are grown, an abundance of rain early in the growing season was followed by a dry-off. “The weekend of July 10, the area received 4 inches of rain at a time when beets don’t like that much moisture,” Gardner says. “We could have been looking at 40-ton beets, but that rain just killed a bunch.”

Then it dried up. “We got about an inch of rain a few weeks ago, but that’s the only measurable rain we’ve had since,” he adds while noting beets didn’t grow.

Gardner’s best sugarbeet harvest was in 2020, when tonnage was 38 tons per acre and sugar averaged 19.39%.

“When all is said and done, we expect to harvest between 30 and 31 tons per acre, and sugar content is measuring at 16.77%, which is very healthy,” says Rob Clark, senior director of communications and community relations at MSC. “To date we have produced about 400 million pounds of sugar during this campaign.”

Clark says the stop-and-start harvest has been frustrating.

“But it’s necessary to ensure we are piling beets at suitable temperatures, because if beets go into piles above 53 degrees, it can lead to all kinds of problems down the road, both in terms of long-term beet quality and negative impact to our factories,” he explains.

Some growers, not wanting to stop and start, opted to finish corn and beans and start fall tillage.

Thirteen piling stations are receiving beets, and processing will continue through March. Clark says they expect to harvest between 30 and 31 tons per acre. That’s down from the company’s earlier projection of 37 tons before the rain ceased, which could have resulted in a potential set-aside (leave in the fields) with too many beets.

For Kim Knoerr, who farms 700 acres, including 150 acres of sugarbeets with his brother Ross near Freeland, beets are averaging about 26 tons.

“But we had some emergence and fertilizer issues, so it’s probably our worst crop in 10 years,” he says. “With the rain shutting off, tonnage is all over the board with neighbors harvesting 21 tons to 32 tons.”

“We anticipate producing about 1.3 billion pounds of sugar,” Clark adds.

Processing plants have high extraction

The facilities are functioning well, and on Oct. 25, the Croswell facility hit yet another new mark for a weekly average slice of 5,625 tons, surpassing by 27 tons the record set one week earlier of 5,598 tons. The previous record was 5,349 tons, set in 2023, according to MSC.

“We’re not trying to break records this year, we’re just trying to be consistent day in and day out,” said Croswell factory manager Randy Lesniak in a Facebook post. “We’ve created a culture where we are being proactive vs. reactive, and by doing so, we are looking ahead and getting out in front of any issues that could trip us up. Thanks to our maintenance team, downtime has been minimal, and uptime has been through the roof.”

Yields have been less than optimal, according to Knoerr, who hopes the higher extraction rate will make up for it. “Overall, we’ll probably produce an average amount of pounds of sugar in Michigan. So, it won’t be a bad year, it won’t be a good year, but sugar pricing is still pretty good, so hopefully farmers will get a decent payment.”

Describing the favorable harvest weather, Gardner says, “When you think about the very hottest day of the year, and then think of the coldest day, those extremities describe harvest last year to this year in terms of being extremely wet to extremely dry.”

Corn has yielded well for Gardner, with a 240-bushel-per-acre average, while soybeans were about average. Cucumbers, which he added last year to diversify, yielded well, and he plans to expand acreage from 35 to 100 next year.

Sugarbeets are a finicky crop, according to Gardner, who had 350 acres yet to harvest the first week of November. “They’re risky, but when everything goes well, they can be a very lucrative crop to help pay the bills,” he says.