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Heat brings weed pressure to west-central Minnesota sugar beet crop

A sugar beet grower in west-central Minnesota is seeing increased weed pressure as the summer heat intensifies.

Noah Hultgren of Raymond says wet, cool conditions this spring slowed plant growth, but a month of warm weather has pushed development of both beets and weeds.

“We’ve had to make sure we’re in the fields at the right time.  With the right winds we can spray at the right time, and we can put down some layby chemicals that help control water hemp because that’s always an issue on our farm.”

Hultgren tells Brownfield he’s in the midst of spraying a second fungicide application on his sugar beets, too.

“The good thing is that we haven’t seen the disease pressure build up with really warm temperatures, as we now talk about temps in the 90’s.”

He says they are following the advice of their local beet co-op and not tank-mixing fungicides and herbicides this year, but have done that in the past with mixed results.