![]() Upper Midwest Sugarbeet Fixtures Larry Smith (left) & Allan Cattanach (right) Reflect Upon Their Lengthy Careers Allan Cattanach grew up on a central Wisconsin hog and dairy farm. Larry Smith’s father was a John Deere dealer in east central Minnesota. Having spent their formative years far away from sugarbeet country, neither could have imagined that their respective careers would end up being constructed around this crop. But that’s exactly what transpired — and now, after nearly four decades as two of the most recognizable names and faces in the Upper Midwest sugarbeet community, both men are transitioning toward retirement. Smith, who joined the staff of the University of Minnesota’s Northwest Experiment Station at Crookston in 1971, fully retires from the university in May. Cattanach, who became American Crystal Sugar Company’s general agronomist in 1998 following more than two decades as University of Minnesota/ North Dakota State University extension sugarbeet specialist, is “on a phased retirement plan.” He expects a more-defined timetable to be worked out by this coming summer in consultation with his Crystal employers. Read this entire issue and back issues. Click here.
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![]() The 45th annual survey of weed control and production practices among sugarbeet growers in Minnesota and eastern North Dakota benefited from an uptick in participation compared to 2012. A total of 183 growers responded to the 2013 survey request, compared to 114 the prior year. Overall, growers planted just over 676,000 acres of sugarbeets in the Minnesota/ eastern North Dakota region in 2013. The 183 survey respondents represent 18% — or 121,063 — of total acres planted. Of the acres reported upon, 99% were planted to Roundup Ready® sugarbeet varieties. Total beet acreage treated with herbicides in 2013 (taking into account multiple applicatons) was 232%. While that level was slightly higher than 2012’s 208%, it was lower than most of the past several years. In 2007, for instance, the last year prior to the introduction of commercial Roundup Ready beets in the region, herbicide treatments stood at 383%. Read this entire issue and back issues. Click here. ![]() Multi-generational tradition and strength lives on in many family operations around the U.S. sugarbeet community — including the Wambekes of Deaver, Wyo. Paul Wambeke, a third-generation beet grower and current board member of the Big Horn Basin Beet Growers Association, was kind enough to send The Sugarbeet Grower these photos from the Wambeke 2013 harvest. The above photo, taken on the last day of a wet harvest, shows the Pryor Mountains of southern Montana/northern Wyoming in the background. Read this entire issue and back issues. Click here. Michigan Grower a Model of Positive Thinking, |
Most of us are familiar with the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . . the courage to change the things I can . . . and the wisdom to know the difference.” It’s a great mantra for anyone to live by — and it’s one that Mike McCormack took to heart a long time ago. The prayer hung on the wall in Room 624 of Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Mich., in the spring of 1985. That’s where the 26-year-old McCormack first faced life as a paraplegic. The young farmer from Sunfield, about 25 miles west of Lansing, had been in a terrible traffic accident, and his life would never be the same. So how did he react? “I woke up in the hospital a couple days later, and somebody showed me a picture of the truck I had been in. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m the luckiest man in the world to be alive!’ ” That positive attitude traveled with him to Denver, Colo., where he entered Craig Hospital, a world-renowned rehabilitation hospital specializing in those with spinal-cord injury or traumatic brain injury. “I’d been wanting to go to Colorado,” McCormack quips in reference to his flatlander’s wish to learn downhill skiing. “Just not on a stretcher.” |
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Mike Spieker
Editor & General Manager of The Sugarbeet Grower
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