Defoliating Beets

We have only been growing sugar beets for 3 years.  I have learned alot in those 3 years, and have plenty more to learn.  One question that is asked quite frequently is 'What is defoliating beets?'.  Well, I happen to get some close up pictures of the defoliater last week as the guys were opening up a new field.  

Basically, the defoliator has a bunch of paddles inside and whips the tops of the beets off.  This is the first step.  After the beets have been defoliated, the diggers come and and scoop those suckers up and load them into the trucks. 

Sugerbeet Snap Shots

Yes, I know we are done with sugarbeet harvest, but I actually got some pictures taken this year and I want to share them with you.  So bear with me!

Digging beets and loading trucks

We got some rain during harvest so we had to use a pull tractor on some fields

Pull tractor at work

Digger waiting on a truck

This sugarbeet harvest is hard on everyone!

Waiting to get loaded back up.  

That's a wrap boys!

2012's sugarbeet harvest for us is in the books! We finished last night. And as soon as the last truck was home, and the last tractor was parked everyone let out a big sigh of relief.

All in all harvest went pretty well. We only had 2 major breakdowns. First major breakdown put one of our semis out of commission. Thankfully a friend of ours let us borrow one of his so we could keep our moving along. Second breakdown was this past Sunday when our 12 row defoliator broke down. It slowed digging down tremendously. The 6 row defoliator couldn't keep up with 3 diggers, so we had to shut down 2 diggers as repairs were being made.

The biggest thing that effects how, when and where we dig beets is the weather. And Mother Nature threw everything at us this year. First it was too hot, then it was too cold. Then we got rain and it was too muddy. It was 19 days from our first day of digging til we got the last beet dug. Of those 19 days we only dug about 9 1/2 days. But we got it done!

So it's a wrap on sugarbeet harvest for 2012. Now on to combining corn, fixing corrals, fall cow work, weaning calves and getting hay hauled home. The fun never stops at this cow camp!!

Picking Sugar Beets with Daddy

Crashed!

Finally! After a year of fighting, cussing, pulling my hair out and having day dreams of running my computer over with my John Deere loader tractor my computer has crashed.

So new computer has arrived and is being worked on to get me ready. Hopefully my computer gal will have it all set up and me online in the next few days. I can't wait.

After church we spent the remainder of the day helping out in the beet field. Slowly we are getting those sugarbeets dug!

Sugarbeet Harvest 2012

This is just the beginning. The beginning of a long Sugarbeet harvest. Digging beets is like no other harvest I have been around. A Sugarbeet grower is at the mercy of the weather and the Sugarbeet factory. If it gets to warm, they shut us down. If its too wet, they shut us down and so on and so forth.

The beet dump opened at 7:00 am this morning. We had defoiliated and dug enough beets to fill our trucks sober were ready to dump right away this morning.

We had a good day. No major breakdowns. Things were going quite smoothly. Until we got the phone call that 'they' were shutting beet harvest down until sometime next week. You see, it's way to warm out. It's beautiful out. Which is not good when digging beets. It has to do with them letting their sugar down and how well they don't store when dug above certain temps. So now we sit and wait.

I took a few photos of the beet dump this morning as we drove by. They aren't the best as we were a ways a way and I took them with my phone.

Sugar Beet Harvest 2010

Sugar Beet Harvest 2011

It was the first Sugar Beet Harvest for us

It was quite the learning experience for me

The weather cooperated pretty well

I didn't get in on any of the harvest as I was pregnant and not feeling well.  Bouncing through the field  was not an option for me.

I did watch from the sidelines and soak up some sunshine.

Just a random picture of some pickups



It is still up in the air on weather we will be planting Sugar Beets in 2011, as the decision on if we will be able to use Round-up Ready Beets or not.  So until that decision is made by those in charge, we don't know what we will be doing.