Beet yields 2020

[Daniel]

Why? You surely don't think that's realistic?

A) If you ask for £27.50 you get £25 and B) British Sugars profits were up by £40odd million last year, it's entirely realistic to expect a fair price on the back of it.

 

[Breckland Boy]

What if you get 85t/ha this year? I think there are some cracking crops out there

The yield one may get this season is wholly irrelevant.

 

[robbie]

Not that it matters what little old shite kicking me thinks but how I see it BS are shitting themselves that there won't be enough beet grown in the coming years(my bs man told me so) they also know that they have pushed too hard over recent years and f#cked off most of their existing growers and there for are pretty much on there hands and knees grovelling for us all to grow beet.

The tables have turned, so if we had a strong union representation I don't see why we can't screw them for a bit more. After all they've been screwing us all for long enough.

I don't think the "grower" has ever been in such a strong position going into the negotiations, yes it could be said if we don't grow at the price they offer they'll import sugar but I don't think that's all sunshine from the chat I had.

A coordinated effort from everyone and I think we can do it, if everyone held back there contracts or only offered up 50% then they would sweat and would need to cave in. weather that would be 30 quid, I don't know, as we all need a little meat on bones but we could definitely change our fortunes in the beet job.

The biggest stumbling is lack of balls by those representing us, I expect already they're sitting back lighting the cigars pissing up each others backs about how good of a job they've done when really they could do so much more with the hand they've been dealt.

 

[Flat 10]

The yield one may get this season is wholly irrelevant.

I know but people have short memories.

 

[Mixedupfarmer]

What if you get 85t/ha this year? I think there are some cracking crops out there

What if they get 25t/ha next year like many of us did last year?

 

[robbie]

I know but people have short memories.

That's what I said to bs yesterday, crops look lovely but if it had been a repeat of last year you(bs) would be buggered as no offer in the world would temp a lot of people.

 

[Flat 10]

What if they get 25t/ha next year like many of us did last year?

Many of you????!!!!?? Wow I thought the worst ones were about 40t/ha. I was pig sick with over half of mine barely scraping 50!

 

[Mixedupfarmer]

Many of you????!!!!?? Wow I thought the worst ones were about 40t/ha. I was pig sick with over half of mine barely scraping 50!

Quite a few I know of who are honest had 20-25t ha adjusted, not small growers and better than me at the job. Luckily we were in the last of the 3 year £22.50/t years, and stopped growing for this year. Delivering high soil tare, low sugar beet 65 miles to Cantley in April, and nearly getting the harvester stuck in late March lifting is not something I would wish to repeat. And that’s not to mention the massive loss in margin from the mediocre cereal crops that followed. At least British sugar obviously earned something out of it.

 

[davidroberts30]

What strategy are people using to counter Cercospora this year?

my fodder beet was hammered with cercospora so this year right or wrong in going with 25kg/h mag suphate and 2 goes of fungicide
thats 25kg/h more and 1 fungicide more than last year

 

[robbie]

Bb

my fodder beet was hammered with cercospora so this year right or wrong in going with 25kg/h mag suphate and 2 goes of fungicide
thats 25kg/h more and 1 fungicide more than last year

BBRO are going to start sending out weekly bulletins for thresholds ect similar to the blight watch thingy.

Epoxi was about the best we had but is now gone so early application of the remaining Chems is the only option.

 

[Sonoftheheir]

They shouldn’t be hit as hard with a good canopy should they? Or would that be worse?

 

[Bill Turtle]

When you say Mag Sulphate do you mean Bittersaltz?
I used 2 full rates of Escolta last year but it does nothing on Cercospora. My information is that there are no new formulations available yet to treat the problem. I did wonder whether it’s worth putting sulphur in the tank to try to gain some extra defence.
once my crop was infected last year, the infection kept building up repeatedly, thus having to continually grow new leaf material.

 

[Flat 10]

One point where NFU did fudge up is the bonus mechanism should have been set at a level to stop BS making such large profits to share a bit with the growers. It was clearly way way off the mark. Shame as it was good in principle.

 

[davidroberts30]

When you say Mag Sulphate do you mean Bittersaltz?
I used 2 full rates of Escolta last year but it does nothing on Cercospora. My information is that there are no new formulations available yet to treat the problem. I did wonder whether it’s worth putting sulphur in the tank to try to gain some extra defence.
once my crop was infected last year, the infection kept building up repeatedly, thus having to continually grow new leaf material.

Escolta is labelled for cercospora but how effective it is isyes epsotop I was going to use,granted the sulpher content is small

 

[Flat 10]

Escolta is labelled for cercospora but how effective it is isyes epsotop I was going to use,granted the sulpher content is small

you need elemental S to have any fungicidal effect. As said escolta rubbish on cercospora.

 

[robbie]

I'm

They shouldn’t be hit as hard with a good canopy should they? Or would that be worse?

It's all to do with damp humid high temps so a bigger canopy could have a better micro climate for the disease to thrive.

From what was said crops need to be sprayed before lessons become visible hence the BBRO forecast model and weekly bulletins and alerts about the disease.

 

[Mixedupfarmer]

One point where NFU did fudge up is the bonus mechanism should have been set at a level to stop BS making such large profits to share a bit with the growers. It was clearly way way off the mark. Shame as it was good in principle.

Seems to have been a theme in all the sugar beet bonus schemes and pricing over recent years

 

[Hindsight]

I'm

It's all to do with damp humid high temps so a bigger canopy could have a better micro climate for the disease to thrive.

From what was said crops need to be sprayed before lessons become visible hence the BBRO forecast model and weekly bulletins and alerts about the disease.

In high pressure situations in the USA (Red River Dakota) growers use a multi treatment programme (upto 6 or more fortnightly applications) revolving around triazoel, strobilurin, SHDI wit Mancozeb, Tin and Copper multi site fungicides.

Very weather dependent in UK. Last year perfect conditions. I am assuming no two years the same. But time will tell.

New fungicide is BAYER Caligula which contains a SHDI but I understand will not be approved for use on the 2021 crop.

 

[robbie]

In high pressure situations in the USA (Red River Dakota) growers use a multi treatment programme (upto 6 or more fortnightly applications) revolving around triazoel, strobilurin, SHDI wit Mancozeb, Tin and Copper multi site fungicides.

Very weather dependent in UK. Last year perfect conditions. I am assuming no two years the same. But time will tell.

New fungicide is BAYER Caligula which contains a SHDI but I understand will not be approved for use on the 2021 crop.

Fluopyram and prothio.

 

[Chris W]

What if you get 85t/ha this year? I think there are some cracking crops out there

Maybe we’re doing something wrong but the NFU deal at our 5yr avg yield (excluding 2020) would give me a profit/ha similar to Spring Beans but with nearly twice as much annual investment and a yield penalty on the following wheat crop.

Unless the price is over £30/t I intend to remove Beet from the rotation on all land where I could grow 2nd wheats without loosing control of BG.