The offical beet harvest for american crystal starts tomorow. *so i wanted to tell all to be carful out there on the roads and in the field, *I get to be in a cat lifting beets and it is two weeks of heck. *for all of you that are near and have some extra time farmers stilll need people to run trucks,tractors,ect. *thanks to all who help, and to everyone be safe.

mmm I like beets and there good for ya to boot http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

sugar, *that is. * American Crystal Sugar, *located in Morhead Minnesota.

Good luck Highlander German. *We just finished our soybeans and just have a few sunflowers and corn left. *My GF's dad works as an engineer for Crystal Suger in the Hillsboro plant.

We don't harvest our beets for about another two weeks or more depending on the weather. Pioneer sugar stopped taking alot of them so production is way down this year compared to what was planted in previouse years. I always hated getting the equipment ready for sugar beets. So much darn work replacing rubber fingers the defoliators and all of the bearings,gears, and chain linkage on the harvesters. We ran JD harvestors only. We had trucks come back with the dirt shake out and we'd leave some of it to jump in the winter. I miss being on my best friends family farm growing up. Hard life unless you own big acreas but rewarding work for sure.
Caleb

when i was a kid i disliked those things but i don't know where when or how beets have become something that i have to have once every so often.

I am confused highlandergerman. Are these beets used to make sugar or are these beets like for pickling? :)

They are talking about sugar beets LadyK. Its quite an operation if you ever get to watch it!
Ryan

Thai is sugar beets, they take the beet wihich is normally between 14-20 percent sugar, process it to get the sugar out, most hersheys candy bars are made with crystal beet sugar. alot of our family products are half crystal. the process is (remember this is near the end of the year). 1. we send a shreder through, we call it the loftness monster. this takes 90 percent of the beet leaves and turns it into a mist, 2. then the roto beater comes along and beats off the last 10 percent of the leaves with steel tipped rubber deals, and may chop off the last part of the beet if it is not clean enough. then we lift them with a six row lifter and put them into a truck that brings them to a pilling station, sound easy right, this moring we had .5 inches of rain, muddy,muddy,muddy. i pull my lifter with a cat challenger, and we run three 6*6 trucks. well any eway catch you guys lateri need my sleep.

I loved running the BIG White tractor on a neighbors farm for tomatoes and beets. It had 12 massive tires and a tweaked engine making 400HP. She'd cruise at over 30mph with a dolly and trailer full. it was funny running down the road to the loading yard at the farm seein peoples faces, they'd dam near crap once they saw us coming. Alot of farmers have bought those new Cat Challengers. they are nice machines for sure.
Caleb

There are a lot of sugar beat farms around my home town area. In the Bird Island and Oliva area. They are already out picking that stuff out of the ground. So, that means winter is just around the corner. Well at least I hope it is. :)

Thanx for taking the time when you are so busy to explain this to me Highlandergerman.Now I like these beets even more that I know they make Hershey's Chocolate :inlove: :inlove: