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Minnesota sugar beet growing season off to great start

The sugar beet growing season is off to another great start in Minnesota.

Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative vice president Todd Geselius says planting began around the 11^th of April.

“That is quite early for us.  With the equipment that everybody has nowadays, planting goes extremely rapidly, so we basically planted our entire crop in about 10 days.”

He tells Brownfield rain the past two weeks has been beneficial and stands look good.

The focus now is on weed control.

“We have cover crop on about 80 percent of our acres, and that’ll be the first thing they start worrying about (is) controlling that cover crop and getting control of that first flush of weeds.  That stuff is probably going to start next week.”

Minnesota growers experienced outstanding sugar beet yields last year, and Geselius says this growing season is starting off even better.