The MARIBO varieties score high on purity

Clean/load demonstration kicks off this year’s sugar beet season in Denmark. The sugar beet season 2018 in Denmark has begun.

After a long and very dry summer, everybody hopes that the beet plants will be able to catch up on growth in the remaining period until harvest.

In one area, things definitely look good: The beets are extremely clean, because the dry summer reduces soil adherence. This was clear to all those present at the clean/load demonstration that Nordic Sugar had arranged with farmer Ole Lauridsen as kick-off for the 2018 season.

High purity throughout the season
Ole Lauridsen is not only beet grower, he is also sales manager at MariboHilleshög. So it is hardly a surprise that he grows MARIBO varieties – JOKER and the new DAVINCI. They are both characterised by high purity, also later in the year when the beet harvest is likely to be challenged by wet conditions.

– On paper, all varieties look equally pure when the yield trials are harvested end of September and beginning of October under good dry conditions, Ole Lauridsen explains. But it can be decisive how they perform under wet conditions later in the year.

The purity percentage is worth money
– Farmers are paid a purity allowance of 5 DKK for each purity percentage, which may affect the contribution margin considerably. Two percent higher purity will result in 800 DKK extra per ha, at 80 tons root yield. This is a 4-5 percent improvement of the financial result, which is also worth mentioning, says Ole Lauridsen.

He explains that MariboHilleshög has been breeding for cleaner varieties for many years and is constantly improving.

The beet growers do not pay extra for varieties with a smooth surface and small root furrow that are easily topped correctly and sitting at the right height in the soil. The MARIBO varieties are performing very well on many of these purity parametres.

Be gentle
Ole Lauridsen encourages growers to focus on doing a good job with the harvesting, regardless of whether they do it themselves or leave it to the tractor station.

– The clean/load demonstration clearly showed that the beets will be injured when things get too rough. With the purity that we have right now, it is possible to lift, clean and load the beets gently, Ole Lauridsen points out.

Yield prospects are ok
For the JOKER and DAVINCI beets harvested by Ole Lauridsen, the purity percentage reached 94.8. The harvest yield is 58.35 tons of beet per ha with a sugar percentage of 17, which is 9.9 tons of sugar per ha.

– Considering the drought and the early harvest , I guess it is an ok yield. With the right conditions for the remaining season, the sugar yield could reach 13 tons per ha, Ole Lauridsen thinks.