Michigan Sugar started early harvest this week, three weeks behind normal because of expected lower yields.

Executive Vice President Jim Ruhlman tells Brownfield even with the late start to planting, the crop had a decent start this year, but a dry August has set back yields.

“In the ag community, the financial stress is there, and our growers did a really, really nice job in nurturing this crop but the yield just isn’t there.”       

He says more rain could help later harvested crops.

“We are really, really dry and desperately need some rain.  Quite actually, if we get rain today or in the next couple of weeks, it will still do us some good.”       

Michigan Sugar farmer members planted 154,000 acres this year, 3,000 less than intended because of the wet spring.  Early harvest samples averaged more than 19 tons per acre, down from more than 23 tons last year.

MID-MICHIGAN (WJRT) - (09/09/19) - It's been a roller coaster ride for farmers trying to weather this growing season. First there was too much rain, then there wasn't enough.

Monday, Sept. 9 their hard work started to come out of the ground.

"We're a little bit later this year than we normally are, we're about three weeks late," said Michigan Sugar Executive Vice President Jim Ruhlman. "We got off to a terrible start this spring with some wet weather. So we just needed a little more time for the crop to develop, so today's start day."

Each day a fresh batch of sugar beets will move from local farms to the four Michigan Sugar factories in Bay City, Caro, Croswell and Sebewaing.

The beets will be sliced daily. Michigan Sugar won't begin piling them up until later in October.

The roads between the farms and factories will be busy.

"They have a full load of beets in their semis, and my message is to be cautious and to be courteous and to be patient," Ruhlman said.

Growers certainly had to be patient this year. "Considering our spring and the extremely dry August that we had, I think we're lucky to be where we are," Ruhlman said.

Ruhlman said this year's harvest varies quite a bit depending on if the beets were planted before or after the heavy spring rain.

Overall Ruhlman said the amount of sugar inside each beet is decent, but there are fewer acres to harvest.

"Our farmers have done a phenomenal job managing this crop," Ruhlman said. "When you get in late and manage the disease and weed pressure and insect pressure that they're faced with, when you look at this crop, it's a phenomenal crop given the conditions that we faced."

And while there's still a lot of work to do on this year's harvest, some growers already have their sights set on next year.

"Everyone is ready for this year to be over with honestly," said Jade Ackerman with Ackerman Farms in Tuscola County. "I just think things have been flying from every direction."

Despite Mother Nature's roller coaster ride, Ackerman told us the harvest won't be a complete wash. "The sugar beet crop isn't looking too bad for what we've been dealt weather-wise. We do our due diligence with spraying, keeping the fungicide and weeds out of field. That's about the only thing we can control," she said.

Ackerman Farms was able to plant sugar beets before the heavy, seemingly-never-ending spring rain. Growers in the same boat appear to be fairing better than those who planted late.

"We planted everything that we're supposed to," Ackerman said.

She added the beets have a decent sugar content which helps boost pricing. "Pre-harvest test results for sugar came back and they were pretty good, so we're very optimistic about the crop this year," AckermaN said.

The Ackermans haven't started their sugar beet harvest just yet, but some neighbors down the road have. They could all use some rain.

"I asked him how harvest was going and he said, 'dusty'," Ackerman shared.

WAHPETON, N.D. – What’s in a name? Quite a bit, when the name is Concord brand air seeders and carts that originated in southeast North Dakota.

After being gone for the past 23 years, the Concord brand has returned to production at the AGCO-Amity JV, LLC, a manufacturing facility in Wahpeton. Concord brand air seeders and carts will be exhibited by AGCO-Amity (AAJV) at Big Iron 2019. The exhibit is east of the food court.

“We’ll have a brand-new 51-foot precision shank drill and our 5250 cart with sectional control,” said Ben Sander, marketing manager for Concord. “We’ll have our sectional control display materials there, but of course we’re in the booth with our other brand – Wil-Rich; we’ll have a Wishek disk there, and Amity Technology is the sugarbeet equipment.”

Concord, Inc., was founded in 1977 by Howard and Brian Dahl – leaders in air seeding development and equipment. With the sale of Concord, Inc., to Case in 1996, the Dahls started Amity Technology the next day. Amity continued making sugarbeet harvesters.

In 2007, Amity purchased Fargo Products, which was started by previous Concord employees.

“They were already making air seeders,” Sander said. “That’s how Amity got back into seeding.”

Amity entered a joint venture with AGCO in 2011.

In 2017, AAJV launched the precision shank drill under the Amity Seeding Brand as a Concord Legacy edition, Sander said.

That started the reintroduction of the Concord name and this spring AAJV launched the Concord brand officially.

“The Concord name is well-respected and known for years and years,” he said. “Every show we go to, growers talk about how they are still using their original Concord.

“It’s still out there – running – and it has such a loyal following and people know and respect the name,” he continued. “Since we are pretty much the same group, we thought it only appropriate to bring that back and help capture some of that passion – to portray our passion for the product.”

Concord, Sander noted, was the first to manufacture an air drill with row-by-row packing and precision depth control. The company also was the first to put fertilizer below the seed at the same time as planting, as well as change seeding and fertilizer rates on-the-go.

All air drills and air carts manufactured by AAJV in North America will now be branded as Concord.

The Concord line includes single- and double-disc drills, air till drills, precision shank drills, and air carts with up to three tank compartments and capacities up to 525 bushels of seed.

“The precision shank drill was launched 2-3 years ago,” said Sander. “It has row units on it with a shank and has a 6-inch wide splitter that puts on 2 rows of seed. There’s an active hydraulic cylinder on each row unit to maintain pressure and trip force, but it’s a very large and beefy seeder.”

AAJV staff incorporated new technology into the seeders – section control, curve compensation, and relative flow and blockage monitoring.

The Concord 51-foot precision shank drill, displayed at Big Iron, can seed and fertilize successfully at 8 mph. Sander said that many drills of that type travel at about 4 mph for a “decent” field finish.

If things are going well, the Concord 51-foot drill operating at 8 mph can plant about 49 acres an hour. That’s similar to most 80-foot drills that can travel up to 5 mph – with 30 feet less of iron, he said.

For Big Iron attendees, Concord will display the new Heads-Up (HD) Opener option for the NT30 disc drills. The double-disc opener was developed for box drills several years ago by AGCO, and the option is available for the Concord disc drill toolbar. A wide variety of equipment will be displayed.

Concord equipment is sold and serviced through the previously established and expanded Amity dealer network, Sander said.

“We are saying that Concord is back, same group of people working on the same things and trying to take it to the next level,” he said. “The name is our legacy, but we are working toward the growers’ future to constantly improve and make farming more efficient and more profitable. We’d definitely like you to stop by and see what we’re all about.”

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September 3, 2019 at 09:48AM