British Sugar confirms Sugar beet yield record for 2017/18 campaign

The sugar beet harvest in north Norfolk. Picture: Ian Burt

British Sugar has confirmed a record beet yield for the 2017/18 campaign, at 83.4 tonnes per hectare (37.1 tons per acre).

A combination of near-perfect growing conditions, combined with continual variety improvements driven through the work of the British Beet Research Association (BBRO), pushed the yield beyond the previous record of 79.8 tonnes per hectare (35.2 tons per acre).

The final calculations show 8.9m tonnes (9.8m tons) of beet, from a total growing area of over 105,000 hectares (259,460 acres), were processed into 1.38m tonnes (1.52m tons) of sugar at British Sugar’s four factories – at Cantley and Wissington in Norfolk, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, and Newark in Nottinghamshire.

Managing director Paul Kenward said: “This has been a long and challenging campaign for our growers, our supply chain and our four factories. I am hugely proud of the record yields we’ve seen from our homegrown sugar beet and we continue to be one of the most efficient sugar industries in the world.”

https://ift.tt/2GPkMMQ Sugar Beet News |
via Eastern Daily Press http://www.edp24.co.uk
April 9, 2018 at 08:39AM