By DALE HILDEBRANT, For Farm & Ranch Guide

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - This year will be the first time sugarbeet growers in the region will be able to plant Roundup Ready sugarbeets.

However, they should be able to learn something from growers to the southwest.

The sugarbeet growing area in Wyoming was able to plant Roundup Ready beets last year as a demonstration project and they shared their experiences during a panel discussion at the International Sugarbeet Institute, which was held recently in Grand Forks.

Those taking part in the panel discussion included sugarbeet grower John Trent Scheuerman, Worland, Wyo., Chuck Duncan, senior agriculturist for the Wyoming Sugar Company, and Doug Ryerson, a Monsanto Co. representative.

The ability to be a test area for Round-up Ready sugarbeets probably kept the sugarbeet industry alive in the Worland area, according to Scheuerman.

The 2006 growing year had been filled with weed challenges and disease problems. And to make matters worse, not many migrant workers came up to work in the beet fields that year.

“We were paying from $80 to $100 an acre to have fields hoed and then we had disease problems that set in,” Scheuerman explained. “At the end of the season, the consensus among the beet growers was pretty discouraging and all that led up to wanting to raise Roundup Ready sugarbeets.

“I am glad our board decided to see this through since you need to look forward to something at sometime in order to continue to do what you are doing,” he continued. “And that’s how we got to raising Roundup Ready sugarbeets.”

That decision ended up being a very profitable one for the growers.

Duncan said they took 20 paired fields that were similar in location, soil type and weather conditions, with 20 fields seeded to Roundup Ready beets and 20 to conventional beets.

This test involved 18 different growers. All of the related input costs and production costs were gathered for each field.

Cultivators were run through the conventional fields an average of 1.8 times, while the Roundup Ready fields were gone through only 0.9 times. Spraying operations averaged 2.5 times for the conventional beets and 2.2 times for the Roundup Ready.

Chemical costs for the conventional seeded fields were $61.74 while the Roundup Ready fields had a total chemical cost of $19.90.

When all of the costs were totaled they ranged from an average of $177 for the conventional sugarbeets, compared to $87 for the Roundup Ready.

Looking at the yields, the conventional beets averaged 22.6 tons per acre with a 16.5 percent sugar content, compared to an average yield of 24.6 tons per acre with a 17.1 percent sugar content on the Roundup Ready fields.

This combination of lower cost per acre and higher yields translated into an additional $223 per acre in higher profits on the Roundup Ready fields.

The Roundup Ready technology is probably best fitted for a crop like sugarbeets, according to Ryerson.

It offers broad spectrum weed control, offers crop safety in all growth stages, has no carryover restrictions and has a wide window of application, offering the sugarbeet producer a great deal of flexibility in their weed control program.

The use of Roundup Ready technology in sugarbeets will generally result in lower costs for weed control and higher crop yields, the panel concluded.

The Wyoming area was a good test area for Roundup Ready sugarbeets, Ryerson noted.

“They use surface irrigation and they have some of the heaviest weed pressures of any place I have seen in the west,” he said.

Some of the management tips that came out of the Wyoming program included:

- You can’t let the weeds get ahead of the crop.

“Sugarbeets are small-seeded crops,” Ryerson said, “and they are very sensitive to early weed pressure, making it necessary to get out there with an application of Roundup as soon as you start seeing weeds emerge and before they get higher than the sugarbeets. Or, if you expect heavy weed pressure, consider a pre-plant application.”

- If Roundup Ready corn is included in your crop rotation, you will need to plan on making an application of a grass herbicide in order to control the volunteer corn.

- Roundup doesn’t do the best job of controlling volunteer alfalfa. If you have a beet field that’s following alfalfa you may need to use another herbicide as a tank mix.

Roundup also only does a marginal control job on milkweed, but will do a fairly good job on suppressing Canada thistle, preventing it from going to seed.

- A second application of Roundup should be made before the next crop of weeds reaches four inches in height.

- Broadcast applications of Roundup are recommended rather than banding.

- Growers need to be aware of glyphosate resistant weeds and have a weed control plan that uses different modes of action.

Also, don’t cut rates.

Ryerson cautioned that growers need to select their varieties first on the disease resistance package that it offers, picking one that will work best in each grower’s situation and then see if that variety comes in a Roundup Ready form.

“But, overall, I think it was a big success in Wyoming, with not many problems,” Ryerson said. “We were worried about drift and equipment issues, but there weren’t a lot of problems.”

In closing, Duncan said the advent of Roundup Ready sugarbeets is a big step forward for the industry.

“I believe that Roundup Ready sugarbeets is best thing that has happened since the introduction of mono-germ seed in the sugarbeet industry.”

http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2008/03/13/ag_news/production_news/pro14.txt

The Sugar Industry Biotech Council and its members are thoroughly committed to the safety and stewardship of crops improved through biotechnology. Roundup Ready sugar beets offer significant economic benefits to growers and the sugar industry along with well-established environmental benefits.

Sugar beets are an important crop, planted on nearly 1.3 million acres in the United States annually. Sugar beets increase geographic diversity in sugar production; the 2007 crop in the U.S. produced 31.6 million tons. Sugar beets improved through biotechnology produce sugar that is identical at the molecular level to sugar produced from sugar cane and other sugar beets.

Weed control is one of the greatest challenges for sugar beet growers. The use of Roundup Ready sugar beets results in improved weed control and substantially benefits farm families and cooperatives. The economic impact of this crop is significant as more than 31,000 people are employed in growing, harvesting and processing sugar beets.

The value of sugar beet crops and their products is critically important to rural communities and their economies. The industry contributes billions of dollars to the economy every year, primarily in the states of Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming.

Roundup Ready sugar beets have been approved for production in the United States and Canada since 2005, and sugar beet seed producers, farmers and the related industry have been planning and moving forward in reliance on that approval. In addition, food and feed products derived from Roundup Ready sugar beets have been approved by numerous regulatory agencies around the world – including the European Union and Japan – affirming the safety of the production and consumption of commodities derived from Roundup Ready sugar beets.

Roundup Ready sugar beets allow farmers to control weeds in a more environmentally sustainable way. By reducing the number of trips across the field, Roundup Ready sugar beets also have the potential to save nearly 1.7 million gallons of fuel each year and reduce the associated emissions of greenhouse gases. Using Roundup Ready technology, sugar beet farmers will finally be able to adopt reduced tillage farming practices, which have been shown to greatly reduce soil erosion.