Beet, what am I doing wrong?

[Flat 10]

i'm guessing your tonnage is a clean washed tonnage, if it's AD crop? Lot of people talk adjusted tonnage for conventional varieties, if they've got high sugar % can make a huge difference to tonnage talk!

I think you have hit the nail on the head! I was just thinking this as I typed my last post honest.

 

[DrWazzock]

If sewerage sludge is acceptable for beet destined for a digester then I'd say get some on.

Get it drilled early as you can before the moisture goes. Choose a low bolting variety?

Do you have a nematode problem? These can come up with the water table here and seriously depress yields in a wet summer.

pH is also critical. It will really suffer if it's not high enough.

What's the soil structure like? If it's a bit fragile then don't over cultivate or it will slump and the beet will yield poorly, especially if it's wet later in the growing season. Only do the very minimum cultivation necessary to get tilth round the seed, after ploughing early to get a frost tilth. But if on sand , plough late, roll and drill.

Too much nitrogen can lead to tops that are too big, shading and small beet. We have learned that the hard way. Normally 120kg N /ha is sufficient, one third on the seedbed, the rest at full emergence. We find more N is counter productive especially with high seed rates. I'd stick to 100,000 seeds per ha.

 

[Mixedupfarmer]

How did you measure your yield? The very high sugar beet yields are often adjusted yields (at 16% sugar) with high sugars, so your yield may not be that far out?

 

[Iben]

Was never a good year for the crop weather wise. A very dry spring would certainly have slowed early growth. One warm week at end of may would have been to early to help. Rest of summer has been cool and damp.

Next year maybe!

 

[Colin]

i'm guessing your tonnage is a clean washed tonnage, if it's AD crop? Lot of people talk adjusted tonnage for conventional varieties, if they've got high sugar % can make a huge difference to tonnage talk!

Dirty tonnes

 

[phil]

Boron is better in seedbed rather than foliar
Plenty of Mg
Kieserite?

 

[Colin]

Also a lot of people include B with the base fertiliser rather than foliar spraying as demands are high but deficiency should be easy to spot......
What was your establishment like? Guess it should be good with irrigation. And as @marshfarmer says lift later.

Last year I went a bit daft and treated it like I do my carrots, full seedbed trace element program, lots of seaweed etc etc and didn't make a difference.

 

[Colin]

How did you measure your yield? The very high sugar beet yields are often adjusted yields (at 16% sugar) with high sugars, so your yield may not be that far out?

So adjusted yield is like getting bonus on rape

 

[Colin]

We test and treat for free living nematodes if required

 

[Al R]

Plough, 600kg/ha MOP, 200kg/ha TSP, 100kg/ha SALT - make sure all of these fertilisers are on 3-5 weeks pre drilling or you can burn the seed. Then subsoil, power barrow, plant the beet. Pre em is best to be 150L/ha 35N + 7S mixed with 2l/ha of Takron. After that do your usual herbicides etc whichever is required for your target weeds, once the beet is out of the ground don’t do full rate herbicides, instead of full rate, go half rate 4-5 days apart ( you won’t knock the young plant) plenty of boron and bittersaltz added to the fungicide applications (Escolta used to be the best). Sometimes 2-3 fungicides are needed. I very rarely had beet under 85-90t/ha - this would be post cleaning and washing over the weighbridge and sold. High DM fodder beet varieties like Blizzard we’re grown - they were almost sugar beet genetic wise and the trials I did it out yielded Gerty, Lizzy, Enermax and another 4 other “Energy” Beets.

 

[Colin]

So the next question am I spending too much on it.
Total VC £685/ha which includes cover crop seed on one field and vydate on half the area.
Herbicide was either pyramin or metamitron pre em, then doses of defiant, trilogy or volcano as required. Total of 3 sprays in worst field. Everything got graminicide for wild oats, and shield + debut for potatoes. One fungicide mid august and another mid September. Home mixed liquid NS dribbled on post drilling.
We get £30/t delivered to the site which is an 8 mile round trip.

 

[Colin]

I used to rent the fields to them, which was easy money, but I have better control.if the weeds doing it myself.

 

[Colin]

Was never a good year for the crop weather wise. A very dry spring would certainly have slowed early growth. One warm week at end of may would have been to early to help. Rest of summer has been cool and damp.

Next year maybe!

I thought that too but we've dug good yields of spuds and the carrots are off to a good start[emoji55]

 

[Flat 10]

So adjusted yield is like getting bonus on rape

Dirty tonnes

Just as an example I delivered a load of 28.5 dirty tonnes to factory. With a sugar of just over 17.5% I got paid on 29.6 adjusted tonnes. As others have said, a big difference.

 

[mushnt grummmble]

I think this is a lot of it, we could maybe sow earlier but what about a late frost at establishment?
The better fields had to be irrigated to get germination, but the two middle of the road fields had excellent establishment without irrigation but are very light.
To be fair the 70t fields give me hope for the future.

Think you answered your own question there
Lack of moisture

 

[ollie989898]

Tailor your herbicide program to your expected weed burden. 2L/ha takron could be suicidal in the wrong situation.

 

[Colin]

Tailor your herbicide program to your expected weed burden. 2L/ha takron could be suicidal in the wrong situation.

I go little and often. Base of metamitron or pyramin then add in the three way mix stuff later. Not sure what the most economical approach is though.

 

[Oat]

I go little and often. Base of metamitron or pyramin then add in the three way mix stuff later. Not sure what the most economical approach is though.

metamitron or pyramin followed by 3 way mix products are good, but may be a bit overkill for AD
As mentioned above, start with metamitron and then adjust the later programme as and when weeds emerge (each time)

 

[ollie989898]

I go little and often. Base of metamitron or pyramin then add in the three way mix stuff later. Not sure what the most economical approach is though.

You have got it right.

Even though the crop is 'only' for AD be careful to make maximum use of chemistry to clean the land up and keep it that way as part of your rotation.

The pre-em bit can be very expensive if you use higher rates, I would not do this in all situations, that is where a big saving can be had but I do not know your weed spectrum.

From the remainder of the thread I suspect your issue was weather related as it was in my area.

 

[Bman]

There is a reason there are no beet factory's near you