Campaign until January 20
German factories process beetroot record
Record high sugar beet yields are also being achieved in Germany. The Südzucker factories still have to process a quarter to 20% of the beets. The campaign is expected to last until the end of January. The harvest is almost complete, although wet weather does not make that easy.
In the week before Christmas, a very small part of the sugar beet still had to be harvested in the south and center of Germany. In the region around Hanover, the beet factory in Lage still had to receive 3% of the beet. 1% still had to be harvested along the Dutch and Belgian borders.
20
percent
Long campaign
During the previous campaign, the harvest was almost completed at the end of December. That is far from the case this year; 20% to almost 25% of all beets have yet to be processed. The largest amount is now in storage. The factory in Zeitz (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) is still running at full capacity, says a spokesperson against news medium MDR. The campaign is expected to be completed on January 20.
"The beet yield is the highest ever the factory in Zeitz has experienced," says Frank Rösler of Südzucker. "The average sugar content is also more than satisfactory. If the prolonged rain and frost do not throw a spanner in the works, the campaign will end at the end of January." It was last in 2014 that the campaign lasted this long.
wet autumn
The harvest is slower in the northwest and north of Germany. In Lower Saxony it has been extremely wet all autumn. Harvesting beets is a struggle and sowing wheat is impossible. In the Netherlands, 52% of the acreage still had to be cleared at the start of week 3. This remainder was not fully harvested in 2017. Beets still have to be harvested in 2018 and the campaign will continue until February.
Niels van der Boom
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