Better Beet Seed.
         Better Revenue.

By: Kathryn Lynch-Morin, The Bay City Times

For many farmers in the Great Lakes Bay Region, there is nothing sweeter than the fall sugar beet harvest.

Gene Meylan uses a pitchfork to dig up a sugar beet at his farm on Seven Mile Road in Kawkawlin. Maylan, who farms 350 acres of sugar beets, is making preparations for the start of the beet harvest which is scheduled to begin on September 15th.And, with only seven days left before trucks start hauling beets from nearly 1,100 farms in 25 counties to Michigan Sugar Co. factories, the company is preparing for a hefty harvest.

"The crop looks very good," said vice president of agriculture Paul Pfenninger. "We are very pleased with the pre-harvest results."

Pfenninger expects a harvest of about 3.7 million tons of beets this year. He said those estimates are based on pre-harvest samples taken from 290 different beet fields.

"Its the second heaviest sample that we have collected," he said.

About 4.1 million tons of beets were harvested during last year's record-breaking season.

The company expects its grower-owners to harvest about 146,000 acres of beets this year. Ray VanDriessche, director of communications for Michigan Sugar, predicts an average yield of 25.5 tons per acre. An average of 26 tons per acre was harvested last season.

VanDriessche said rumors of a sugar shortage, started by manufacturers that use a lot of sugar, are simply not true.

"There is no sugar shortage," said VanDriessche. "We have plenty of sugar to sell."

The allegations even prompted the American Sugar Alliance to take out an ad in the Wall Street Journal, letting everyone know that America's sugar producers have plenty of sugar to sell this season.

Michigan Sugar has factories in Monitor Township, where its headquarters are located, as well as Caro, Croswell, and Sebawaing in the Thumb region.

The trucks are expected to begin bringing in beets on Sept. 15, and the slicing of beets will begin the next day and continue until the end of February.

Deliveries that begin on Sept. 15 are part of Michigan Sugar's "early delivery." Growers receive a premium payment for delivering their beets early in the season, rather than waiting a few more weeks to begin harvest, when beets might be a bit bigger and contain more sugar.

The company limits the amount of beets it receives early so the beets to pile up while the weather is still warm.

Full production will begin when the weather turns cooler.

Gene Meylan, owner of G and E Meylan Farms in Bay County's Kawkawlin Township, expects to harvest about 400 acres of beets this year, despite a rough start to the season.

"Things are looking much better than they did two months ago," said Meylan, who sighted a wet spring and a cold summer for the slow start. "But now, we are pleasantly surprised."

He said the current weather conditions, moderate temperatures and few violent storms, are perfect for sugar beets.

"The conditions are just ideal," said Meylan. "I'm pretty excited about it."