During a period they call "pre-pile" they have farmers bring in some early beets directly to the plants and they do the initial gear up and preparation and do testing on the beets for sugar content and whatnot, and then for the actual full harvest we deliver to piling stations, some of which are at the factories themselves. They will be hauling into the factory off these huge piles for a good chunk of the year to keep the factory running.
I watched a TV show about a candy company. The writers have no idea what sugar is. The wrote that the company owner paid more for sugar because they buy sugar from local farms. Do writers think that farmers harvest sugar?
Yeah the PTO can be tough for sure. I’m lucky that my job is pretty flexible so when we get shut down for heat I can just head into the office and not burn up PTO on days when we can’t be harvesting. Thanks for watching!
Doesn’t surprise damage to trucks every time I see someone harvest they have their tractor had this other thing on the back and then you take that and you put it in the semi then the semi goes into the green elevator and stuff you know
Hey great question! I don't know the exact details, but the number of trucks you can have is decided by the co-op. I know it factors how many acres you are farming, how far from a factory/piling station you are, and whether you are on a 12 or 24 hour schedule/contract. I work with a farmer who is doing fairly small acreage on a 24 hour contract, and one way or another that works out to us only getting to have 2 trucks going.
I drive one of those trucks for a relatively small farmer as well and their beet fields are pretty far from a plant or piler. So he is allowed four trucks 24 hours a day.
@@DireAdventure oh yeah, 40-45 miles one way to the processing plant pilers depending on which field we are in. There is a piler station about 30 miles from us but, he figures for the 10 ish extra miles it's worth going to the plant instead. Because the farmers have to pay x amount $ per ton to pay Trans Systems to haul them from a pile to a plant to be processed anyway. This farmer grows around 400 + or - acres of beets a year. American Crystal is a co-op owned by the farmers, who are the shareholders in the company. So for each share they own, rent or trade they can grow X amount of acres. I heard one time, but don't remember how many acres to a share. But I believe it does vary from year to year too. But I can say it's big money spent and made in this sugar beet farming stuff!
Yeah, it is similar to potato farming from my understanding. Unfortunately we are limited in how many trucks we are allowed to have in order to keep things moving smoothly at the factories/piling stations.
@@DireAdventure yup, it doesn't do much good to have a whole bunch of trucks wasting time sitting in long lines waiting to get unloaded. There is already enough of that at times.
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Cool video, my father used to talk about sugar beet and potato harvesting on the family homestead in Grafton. Big changes since he was on the farms.
We actually weren’t too far away from Grafton! Maybe 10 miles. But yeah things have definitely changed
Great video.
Thank you!
First time I’ve seen sugar beets being harvested. Do they go straight to processing plants from fields? Cool video.
During a period they call "pre-pile" they have farmers bring in some early beets directly to the plants and they do the initial gear up and preparation and do testing on the beets for sugar content and whatnot, and then for the actual full harvest we deliver to piling stations, some of which are at the factories themselves. They will be hauling into the factory off these huge piles for a good chunk of the year to keep the factory running.
I watched a TV show about a candy company. The writers have no idea what sugar is. The wrote that the company owner paid more for sugar because they buy sugar from local farms. Do writers think that farmers harvest sugar?
yeah.... I dunno what they were thinking with that one lol
Nice video. I always wanted to join in a harvest but never knew anyone well enough to ask and limited PTO never helped.
Yeah the PTO can be tough for sure. I’m lucky that my job is pretty flexible so when we get shut down for heat I can just head into the office and not burn up PTO on days when we can’t be harvesting. Thanks for watching!
Seems like they could green chop the tops for livestock feed.
@@larrydobbe980 maybe! I don’t know much about the nutritional value/uses of the tops
Not a lot of livestock around beet farms. Also getting them off of the field without damaging the beets would be a challenge.
@@diersirrigation ah I didn’t realize green chop meant letting the cows out in the field. Yeah that wouldn’t work for a lot of reasons
It looks like somewhere like potato farming, right?
What's the name of the farm you help
I would prefer to keep that private but thank you for watching!
Doesn’t surprise damage to trucks every time I see someone harvest they have their tractor had this other thing on the back and then you take that and you put it in the semi then the semi goes into the green elevator and stuff you know
why only two trucks? does that apply to all growers because it seems like some have dozens of trucks
Hey great question! I don't know the exact details, but the number of trucks you can have is decided by the co-op. I know it factors how many acres you are farming, how far from a factory/piling station you are, and whether you are on a 12 or 24 hour schedule/contract. I work with a farmer who is doing fairly small acreage on a 24 hour contract, and one way or another that works out to us only getting to have 2 trucks going.
I drive one of those trucks for a relatively small farmer as well and their beet fields are pretty far from a plant or piler. So he is allowed four trucks 24 hours a day.
@@oneninerniner3427 any idea how far? We were about 10 miles, only 198 acres of beets though.
@@DireAdventure oh yeah, 40-45 miles one way to the processing plant pilers depending on which field we are in. There is a piler station about 30 miles from us but, he figures for the 10 ish extra miles it's worth going to the plant instead. Because the farmers have to pay x amount $ per ton to pay Trans Systems to haul them from a pile to a plant to be processed anyway. This farmer grows around 400 + or - acres of beets a year. American Crystal is a co-op owned by the farmers, who are the shareholders in the company. So for each share they own, rent or trade they can grow X amount of acres. I heard one time, but don't remember how many acres to a share. But I believe it does vary from year to year too. But I can say it's big money spent and made in this sugar beet farming stuff!
@@oneninerniner3427 oh yeah no doubt big money especially when it’s going as well as the last few years have.
It looks like somewhere like potato farming, right? Let’s get more trucks I would have firetrucks if I was doing that.
Great video.
Thank you for the kind words!
It looks like somewhere like potato farming, right? Let’s get more trucks I would have firetrucks if I was doing that.
Yeah, it is similar to potato farming from my understanding. Unfortunately we are limited in how many trucks we are allowed to have in order to keep things moving smoothly at the factories/piling stations.
@@DireAdventure yup, it doesn't do much good to have a whole bunch of trucks wasting time sitting in long lines waiting to get unloaded. There is already enough of that at times.