Friday, December 7, 2007

By Dale Hildebrant

This is great news for the sugarbeet industry, according to Dr. Alan Cattanach, an American Crystal agronomist, who predicts over half of the sugarbeet acreage in his company`s program in 2008 will be devoted to Roundup Ready beets.

Many growers and industry people thought the sugarbeet industry was on the verge of a Liberty-link biotech weed control program back in 1997. But, as Cattanach pointed out, a last minute problem with first season bolting in developed biotech varieties, plus the lack of acceptance by foreign buyers to purchase by-products from beet refining and the reluctance of sugar companies to accept the product, put biotech beets on the back burner.

Now, in 2007, after 10 more years of testing, the opposition of sugar from biotech beets has pretty much disappeared from the market, and foreign buyers such as the European Union, Japan and Mexico are more accepting of both sugar and by-products from biotech.

"The sugar is the same," Cattanach said. "Nutritionally it`s the same and the chemical composition is the same. The Sugar Industry Biotech CouncilStook 40 samples from around the world - cane sugar samples, beet sugar samples, organic sugar samples, samples from the U.S. and many foreign countries and had them analyzed by an independent laboratory and found that all of these sugar samples have exactly the same analytical profile. The sugar is the same, regardless of the source. And the pulp and the molasses are the same, whether from a biotech or conventional beet."

Growers should realize several benefits from planting Roundup Ready sugarbeets, Cattanach claims, with the largest coming from better weed control. In annual sugarbeet grower surveys conducted by Alan Dexter, a large majority of growers every year point to weed control as their biggest problem. The Roundup Ready technology should be a big help in this area, according to Cattanach.
 
Growers will also have a lot more flexibility in their weed control.

"That narrow window of application on very small beets using micro-rates to try and minimize crop injury might become a thing of the past. This is going to be a much more user friendly system for the growers, no doubt," he said.

The Roundup Ready beets should also require fewer trips across the field, which will result in fuel savings for farmers. "The fewer trips across the fields for the three co-ops and their seven factories should result in savings of a minimal of one million gallons of diesel fuel for those using Roundup Ready beets," Cattanach noted.
 
For 2008, all three sugarbeet cooperatives in this region - American Crystal, Minn-Dak and Southern Minnesota Beets Sugar Cooperative - have given a green light to Roundup Ready sugarbeets.

However, any Roundup Ready beet varieties must meet each of the cooperative`s approval standards for such things as Cercospora leaf spot, recoverable sugar per ton and recoverable sugar per acre. And they need to have a certain level of resistance to certain sugarbeet diseases. Because of these variety requirements, the amount of Roundup Ready sugarbeet acres will vary with each of the three cooperatives.

For American Crystal, Cattanach estimates the amount of available seed will be the limiting factor with around 50 percent of the total acreage in biotech varieties.

For the Minn-Dak Cooperative, they have set a maximum of 50 percent of the acreage can be planted to Roundup Ready seed. Minn-Dak will, however, be doing some test growing and marketing this year of a few other biotech varieties in hopes of expanding to the approved line after 2008.

Beyond 2008, Cattanach said the amount of biotech beet seed planted will depend on two things - seed availability and how successful production is in 2008.

"My best guess is that we will be at 80 percent or better in 2009 at American Crystal. Minn-Dak will probably do something similar, and Southern Minnesota will probably see around 50 percent," he said.

However, the switch to Roundup Ready sugarbeets isn`t without concern, according to Cattanach. In the past few years there has been a slight incidence of the some of the sugarbeet plants actually being annuals, rather than biennials. And these annual plants have bolted during the first growing season and produced viable seed, rather than developing a large root reserve, which is harvested in the fall.

"These beets that bolt in the first year, could produce seed that would fall on the field," he explained. "These seeds would then germinate the following year and if the ground that year was planted to a crop like Roundup Ready soybeans, we would have all these Roundup-resistant sugarbeet plants growing in with the soybeans and the grower would have to find an alternative way to control them.

"Probably an even bigger problem would occur if we have an annual beet that is growing as a volunteer in a Roundup Ready sugarbeet field, you are going to have to figure out a way to get rid of them. Monsanto, in their grower`s agreement for sugarbeets has a requirement that you rouge out these bolters in your sugarbeet fields."

The tech fees for sugarbeets is also going to be high compared to those charged for corn and soybeans, and Cattanach is concerned that some growers will lower their plant population per acre in order to lower the fees. At a standard plant population, the tech fees are going to be from $55 to $70 an acre, depending on seeding rate, with the charge per unit of seed listed at $106.

For sugarbeet growers wanting more information, this winter`s series of sugarbeet grower meetings will focus on Roundup Ready sugarbeets.

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