FINAL SAY Clodhopper


Time to beet a retreat? H


With beet liſt ing under way, Clodhopper says he doesn’t regret having stopped growing the crop


aving once grown sugar beet, the crop is never far from my thoughts – espe- cially at this time of year when lift-


ing is under way. I’ve grown sugar beet for most of my farm-


ing life, so when the time came, it wasn’t easy to give it up. But fi nancial sense rather than sed- iment won the day and I eventually stopped. Sometimes I wish I still grew it – but deep down I know it is best not to. At the time, oilseed rape returns were far better and the beet price was wallowing in the depths at about £18-19/t. Virgin rape yields were extremely good until fl ea beetle became a major problem, but I still feel the right deci- sion was made. It was always a challenge when the beet price fell away to maintain a decent profi t – especially as the farm soil types were not al- ways the best suited to grow the crop. When I remember back, some of the very good land would occasionally be prone to the odd fen blow in early spring. In later years, this meant we used cover crops when growing beet. Established in ear- ly March, they were most often barley, some- times wheat. Before cover crops, we used straw after drilling – but at times it failed to work or was a devil to remove with a tractor hoe.


Three-man job It was a three-man operation, with one driv- er and two men standing on the back laying


the bunched straw down the conveyor belt to the large discs which pressed the straw into the ground. It was not the best of jobs and a pleasure when cover crops replaced the straw planter.


Early herbicides worked well, with the ever trusted Herbon Gold being the fi rst point of contact. A few other well-known herbicides and the job was done. The point of all this past history is that British Sugar would always offer advice on all aspects of the crop. If you had a late fl ush of willow weed or fat hen and couldn’t decide whether to spend money on chemical control or rely on the trac- tor hoe to remove the weeds, the advice was to spend the money on the chemical but still use the tractor hoe to help control the volun- teer beet.


Similarly, a healthy dose of P, K and lime


was encouraged to increase soil indices. De- spite their own lime sometimes having a lower neutralising value than other availa- ble brands, the advice always seemed to be to use it anyway.


Alternatives Like me, recent years have seen more farmers give up on beet and grow alternative spring crops instead. Other farmers have considered growing sugar beet to feed anaerobic digest- ers rather than for processing.


British Sugar eventually decided to start growing the crop itself to ensure the compa-


ny’s factories had enough sugar beet to pro- cess. This involved fi nding farmers or contrac- tors willing to drill, spray and harvest the crop on land rented by the processor. This year, I’ve found myself amazed at how untidy and dirty some beet looks. Not beet grown by farmers, I hasten to add, but beet being grown on behalf of British Sugar. And the farmers whose land it is worries it is giv- ing them a bad name. I have seen some contractors topping crops


to fl ail down the rubbish which sticks above the beet leaves. And I’ve seen large areas of beet not tractor-hoed – even the headland overlaps. The result not only looks untidy, it makes it harder to lift.


The differences between the two approach- es are most obvious when a British Sugar fi eld is next to a farmer’s own beet crop. One fi eld will usually look much tidier than the other – yet given all their expertise you would ex- pect them both to be equally good. I guess the aim is to grow the beet as cost- effectively as possible – sticking to a strict budget largely regardless of weeds or prob- lems present. But all plans and budgets need fl exibility – and should be adaptable accord- ing to circumstances.


I can’t help but thinking that growers and British Sugar should each stick to their strengths: farmers should be left to grow the crop and the processor should process it, rath- er than trying to grow its own.


“I’ve found myself amazed at how untidy some beet looks.”


OCTOBER 2017 • MIDLAND FARMER 39


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