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Friday, April 4,2008 - Prairie Post - 9NEWSSouthern Alberta sees second consecutiveBy Ric Swihart AlbertaMother Nature, better seed varieties, or farmers getting better at raising sugar beets are credited with a second consecutive bumper crop last year.Andrew Uytdewilligen of Coaldale, chairman of the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers Marketing Board ag committee, said the average yield for 2007 was 25.06 tonnes per acre, the second highest in history and only slightly less than a tonne below last year’s record crop of 26.04 tonne an acre.Sugar contents in 2007 was 18.13 per cent and the extractable sugar rate was 15.93 per cent which wasjust slightly down from 2006.The 2007 crop got off to a good start, with planting started April 13.Conditions were almost ideal, with good soil moisture. Farmers planted approximately 34,105 acres, down from the previous year of 37,500 acres at the request of Rogers Sugar.Two hail events were recorded, one on June 17 in mainly in the Taber area with little or no yield reduction. However, on Aug. 10, a major storm stretched from Coaldale to Bow Island, causing severe damage, ranging from 50 to 100 per cent defoliation.Yield and quality reduction on the severely hailed beets was experienced.bumper crop of beetsIn total 8,269 acres were affected by hail. Harvest started Sept. 24 and was completed Oct. 29, with 853,669 tonnes received.There was a lot of discussion on the possibility of us growing herbicide tolerant Beta BZ 1990 RR for 2008, All approvals have been met as well as seed availability, however, Rogers Sugar is not willing to commit to accepting herbicide-tolerant sugar beets.“We have heard that at least 50 per cent of the U.S. market will be seeded to herbicide tolerant sugar beets, which obviously means as one of the seed reps said to me ‘the anchor has been pulled and the ship is pulling out of dock, the only problem is Ym afraid we might have missed the boat*.”
Newspaper Details
Prairie Post
Lethbridge, Alberta, CA
Fri, Apr 04, 2008
Page 13
Full Page
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Dylan F.
CA 07 May 2020
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