{gallery}11_10_09/beetwoes{/gallery}Beets damaged by an early-October frost remain in a field north of Powell on Friday. A quota limiting harvest of the severly-damaged beets stalled farmers who would be finished with the beet harvest at the end of October in a normal year. Tribune photo by Carla Wensky Crops found to be in poorer condition, harvest still uncertain Western Sugar Cooperative officials last week called off a planned “surge” that would have let growers across the district harvest sugar beets from fields damaged by frost in early October.Only a few growers in selected areas were allowed to dig over the weekend after officials decided beets in those areas showed less damage and might store longer, said Ric Rodriguez on Monday.

District-wide, he said, “it all comes down to the fact that the beets have been severely damaged,” he said. No fields have shown the healing growers hoped for when weather improved.

Late last week, the co-op's ag staff and members of the Big Horn Basin Beet Growers Association toured fields across the Lovell factory district and found many fields were in worse condition than previously believed, Rodriguez said.

“They really deteriorated a lot,” Rodriguez said. The co-op already has a two to three-week supply of beets piled at receiving stations awaiting processing in Lovell, he said. Growers in some areas, such as Heart Mountain and Cody, escaped the most severe frost and those fields have “some better beets that weren't hurt as bad.”

They might store long enough to hold until the factory catches up on the piled beets, he said.

“We've got to get this slice out of the way,” he said.

Some beets are not lasting well in piles, Rodriguez said. “Juice started running out of them.”

Warm, extremely windy days last week were hard on piled beets, he said. Wind drives warm air into the piles at receiving stations.

Some beets have already frozen and thawed at least once, which can speed deterioration, he said.

Rodriguez was allowed to dig over the weekend. He said October snow insulated his beets from some of the worst cold. He still hopes the weather will hold and give growers more chances to get into their fields.

Fred Hopkin, who grows beets on the Penrose east of Powell, hoped to get in on the surge last week but Western Sugar officials told him not to dig.

“They called us and shut us down” on Thursday, he said. “Our beets won't store long-term and I realize that.”

There are a lot of variables that will dictate whether he's able to harvest the two and a half fields he still has left, Hopkin said. For insurance reasons, he's hoping to dig at least 43 more acres, he said.

Is he done harvesting for the year?

“I'm hoping not,” he said. “It's kind of a day to day, field by field” decision, he believes. “It changes day to day as they look at the situation.”

“Judging by the appearance of the beets” in his fields, which show frost damage, “to me they look like they could be processed,” he said.

He doesn't expect them to improve from now on.

“If they haven't healed in a month's time, I don't think they're going to,” Hopkin said.

Hopkin sold some of his beets to Wyoming Sugar Co. which bought 21,000 tons of Western Sugar beets. He estimates he received $15 to $16 less per ton delivering them to Emblem that he may have received from Western Sugar after he factored in trucking costs, “but better than leaving them in the ground.”

Hopkin isn't sure how the sugar content in his beets is holding up. He hasn't delivered to Western Sugar for two weeks and hasn't received sugar content information from Wyoming Sugar yet.

He sympathizes with Western Sugar officials who are trying to process as much as possible of the beet crop.