The 2011 sugarbeet harvest marked the second year of an innovative — and successful — beet loading and storage project involving growers and staff of Michigan Sugar Company.  In this project, which has been conducted in the co-op’s Sandusky and Bay City, Mich., and Dover, Ont., districts, participating growers dump their harvested beets on field edges.  A Ropa ‘Maus’ machine cleans the beets before they are loaded into trucks and transported to the piling station.  There, a “stacker” conveyor places the already-cleaned beets into standard long-term storage piles.  The stacker is essentially a standard beet piler on which the grab-roll cleaning bed and dirt belt system have been bypassed or removed.