TABER, Alta. – About 1,000 acres of southern Alberta’s sugar beet crop have been lost to this year’s excessive rainfall.
Andrew Llewelyn-Jones, agricultural superintendent for Lantic Sugar in Taber, said one field was drowned out and low spots in many other fields have been lost for the year.
He said some of those areas were reseeded to other crops such as barley, but others were inside sugar beet fields and left bare.
Farmers planted 31,000 acres of beets in the spring.
Read Also
Alberta’s beets a sweet domestic segment in Canada’s sugar supply
The sugar beet industry is showcased during a Farm to Table tour, as Taber features the last remaining sugar beet processing plant in all of Canada.
Lack of hot weather continues to hinder plant development, he added.
Sugar beet leaves normally form a canopy that covers the bare ground between rows by July 1. Some fields are getting close to row closure, but others are still 10 days to two weeks away.
Llewelyn-Jones said yields this year likely won’t be as good as anticipated in the spring. Growth will be dictated by weather in July, August and September.
He said hot weather last September allowed beets to add considerable weight. The long-term yield for sugar beets is 23 tonnes an acre.
“There is still the possibility of getting there, but it will depend on the weather,” he said.
The continuing wet, cold weather has also hit southern Alberta’s dry bean industry.
Owen Cleland, who works at Viterra’s bean plant in Taber, said up to 9,000 acres of the almost 48,000 acres planted by farmers have been lost to bad weather.
The earliest seeded beans fared the best, but later-seeded fields are struggling, mostly because of the lack of consistent hot weather.
He said the massive rain of 90 to 125 millimetres in the region east of Lethbridge “really put a nail in the coffin of many crops.”
