11/30/06 Sugar beet harvest is a good one

Amalgamated Sugar Company is going full speed ahead with processing a record beet yield this year. JARO "Something in the range of 31 tons to the acre. That's a very good yield." That's Amalgamated CEO Vic Jaro who says the five year average for the grower owed cooperative is about 28 tons an acre. Even with a wet spring and a planting delay, Jaro says the weather conditions this summer made up for that. JARO "We didn't have really the kinds of wet weather that we've had the last couple where you're getting the last beets out under very, very wet conditions. So we were tickled to death. In terms of comparative to the last couple of years this was a very good harvest. However, the sugar content percentage was down this year. JARO "Normally we'd be around 17 or so and we are probably in the range of between 16.3 and 16.5." The higher yield will compensate for that. Amalgamated has 70 different sites in southern Idaho where beets are stored, waiting processing and those piles are continually monitored. When it's completed in Nampa in mid-February and in Twin Falls and Paul in mid-March Amalgamated will have produced 18 million hundredweight sacks of sugar. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott