{gallery}10_13_09/beet101309{/gallery}Local farmer Regan Smith cuts a sugar beet to reveal a frozen section on the right side while the left side remains thawed. While a few frosty nights actually drive sugar into beets, long exposure to freezing temps harms sugar content. Smith took a break from the Friday afternoon harvest to explain how the weather affected the local crop. Tribune photo by Carla Wensky Beet harvest critical in wake of October freezeSugar beet growers are hoping for sunshine and improving weather after a weekend of freezing temperatures dealt a shocking blow to what had been forecast as a record sugar beet crop in the Lovell factory district.“It's pretty critical right now,” said beet farmer and Western Sugar Cooperative director Ric Rodriguez of Powell Monday, assessing the impact of temperatures that registered as low as 12 degrees in the Shoshone Valley from Friday to Sunday.

The freeze came with 75 percent of the sugar beet crop still in the ground, said Rodriguez.

Ironically, growers had anticipated a record sugar crop this year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agriculture Statistics Service on Friday reported that 30,000 acres were to be harvested with a projected average yield of 26 tons per acre. That estimated yield of 780,000 tons would be 17 percent more than 2008 and 19 percent more than 2007.

Growers planted sugar beets on 2,900 more acres than in 2008 and the projected yield was up 1.5 tons per acres.

Expecting high yields, Western Sugar Cooperative officials opened receiving stations early this year. The early harvest started Sept. 18, with temperatures then rising into the 70s and 80s.

Sunny days are needed now to salvage the sugar beet crop with only about 25 percent of the beets harvested.

With the temperature at 25 degrees Monday morning west of Ralston, the ground was still too frozen to permit a clean dig, Rodriguez said. Further up on Heart Mountain, snow cover was greater, with as much as 10 inches covering some fields from the Friday-Saturday storm. While the snow cover may have helped protect beets from freezing, warming temperatures “will muddy things up” and add to the slow going of the harvest.

“I'd rather have mud than not be able to dig at all,” Rodriguez said. “We need sun.”

The early October freeze has thrown the harvest into a crisis mode. As digging resumes, growers for Western Sugar have been put on allotments to limit their deliveries of the frozen beets, said Rodriguez, a director with the growers' cooperative.

Basically, the quotas are determined by what the factory can process in a period of days, Rodriguez said.

The sugar beets harvested after the freeze will be handled separately from beets already delivered to piling grounds. Growers were allowed to haul beets to some receiving stations without restrictions through Monday, Oct. 12.

The scheduled deliveries (allotments) were to take effect today (Tuesday), Rodriguez said. Growers have been notified of how many beets they can dig and deliver under the quota system.

The company will accept deliveries until 30,000 tons of frozen beets are at the Lovell factory for slicing. The frozen beets won't store indefinitely in piles now and must be processed in a matter of days.

The factory can slice 3,000 tons a day. The 30,000 tons equates to about 10 days of factory output.

“When the 30,000 tons gets close to used up, growers will start scheduled deliveries again,” Rodriguez said. “It will be slow going. We hope the factory runs good. It's all we can do.”

Some of the beets are frozen an inch or two below ground, and some are frozen half way down, Rodriguez estimated. Beets which were covered by good, strong foliage suffered less freezing below the ground.

“Some of the beets will heal with warmer temperatures,” Rodriguez said. “If they're not froze too far down, they may recover.”

The Western Sugar Cooperative director was blunt about the status of the harvest at mid-October.

“It's serious business now,” Rodriguez said. “We need warmer temperatures. We've got to be optimistic. Maybe we'll get a miracle or something.”