News Sugar beets
2018 campaign down with 1,48 million tons of beets
Suiker Unie drew a line under the beet campaign for the 9/2018 season on Wednesday 2019 January. This made the campaign exactly 1 month shorter than last season. As already known, the carrot and sugar yield are considerably lower, while the sugar content is considerably higher.
In total, the factories processed 120 million tons of sugar beet in 6,46 days. That is 1,48 million tonnes less than in the 2017/2018 season. The sugar content is considerably higher at an average of 17,4%. In the previous campaign that was still 16,65% over 150 campaign days, when the harvesting and processing continued until the beginning of February.
The higher sugar percentage was unable to compensate for the lower yield. Sugar production is about 206.000 tons lower, with an almost equal area. A total of 1,12 million tons of sugar was extracted. The tare percentage of 8,5% can also be called exceptionally low.
Decline in beet acreage
The beet seed for next season has now been ordered. Judging by the orders, parent company expects Cosun an area of 80.000 hectares. This is a decrease of 6,2%. Last year the area was 85.347 hectares. According to Cosun, this is in line with expectations. A larger area will probably be filled with grains or alternatives, such as chicory. Subsidiary Sensus expected namely an increasing area.
Roughly half of the area is sown with varieties that are resistant to beet cyst nematodes. Resistance to rhizoctonia covers 33% of the sowing area and rhizomania resistance covers 17%. The varieties BTS7105RHC and BTS2345N are the most popular, followed by Tessilia from KWS.
Niels van der Boom
© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.
