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Show Utah Sugar Beet Growers Are Harvesting Best Crop Since '54 Utah sugar beet growers this fall are harvesting their best crop since 1951 and one of the biggest since drouth hit the growing areas in the southern part of the state, seriously ser-iously reducing state total production produc-tion of sugar. With the annual harvest of the sugar-filled root crop about at the mid-point, indications were that the Utah orop would hit about 490,000 tons of beets, up well over the approximately ap-proximately 460,000 tons harvested harvest-ed a year ago. Sugar production this year is indicated in-dicated at around 148 million lbs. of pure Utah beet sugar as compared com-pared to 137 million a year ago. All of this was adding up to increased in-creased cash income from sugar beets in 1957 for Utah sugar farmers, far-mers, an estimated payment for their crop this year of well over $7 lis million as against slightly less than $7 million in 1956. This total docs not include the additional addition-al significant value of by-products of the annual harvest and sugar-making sugar-making campaign beet tops, pulp, and molasses, which are excellent livestock feed. Though the drouth in southern Utah had not been broken by this fall, conditions there in the main growing districts of Sanpete and Sevier counties were improving, according ac-cording to H. J. Sanders, Utah manager for the Utah-Idaho Sugar Sug-ar Company, which receives and prooesses beets grown in that part of the state. Sanders said yields seemed to be back on the upswing, although ithe area has not yet returned re-turned to anything like its former levels of production. Total Utah acreage planted to sugar beets this year was slightly over the 30,000-acre mark. A year ago the total was just short of 28,000 acres planted. Average tonnage ton-nage per acre of beets being harvested har-vested throughout Utah this fall was reported by industry spokesmen spokes-men as running slightly lower than 1956 when per-acre production reached an all-time record high of 17.2 tons. Estimates for this year's crop pegged the comparable figure at about 17 tons per acre. Main reason for the slight decrease de-crease in tonnage was believed to be the wet spring this year which delayed planting in many sections, thus shortening the growing season, sea-son, which is an important factor in determining yields. Utah yields have been steadily rising for a number of years, according to processing pro-cessing company officials and sugar sug-ar beet growers, as a result of constant con-stant industry research programs to develop ever better plant varieties var-ieties and improving farming techniques. tech-niques. They pointed out that this j type of work has enabled Utah i beet farmers, and their fellows in the 21 ether sugar beet producing states of the nation, to become the most efficient sugar producers in the world. Utah's harvest this fall began as early as Sept. 27 in some sections sec-tions of the state, while in other areas digging the big crop did not begin until Oct. 7. Completion of the harvest, barring inclement weather which would halt field work, is expected in most areas around mid-November, but extending extend-ing almost to Christmas in Box Elder county in the northern part of the state. Four processing factories are slicing beets and extracting the sugar on an around-the-clock, sev-en-days-a-week schedule. These are the Amalgamated Sugar Company's Com-pany's plant at Lewiston; the Lay-on Lay-on Sugar Company's mill at Lay-ton; Lay-ton; and two Utah-Idaho Sugar Company factories at Garland and West Jordan. Beets from southern Utah, formerly processed at the Gunnison faotory of Gunnison Sugar, Sug-ar, Inc., are being handled at West Jordan. The Gunnison mill was closed in 1956 as a result of the drouth which had reduced acreage below a point making feasible continuing con-tinuing that factory's operation, Company officials announced at that time the factoiy probably would be reopened when more normal nor-mal conditions once more prevailed An innovation drawing wide attention at-tention in Utah's sugar beet fields this year was the expanded use of the mnnogerm seed, a variety designed de-signed to speed mechanization of spring sugar beetthinning work. The new variety sends up a single seedling plant, rather than the cluster produced by its predecessor, known as the multigerm, thus sharply cutting down the amount of work required to reduce field stands to proper populations for maximum growth and production. This year saw less than ten percent per-cent of Utah's total sugar beet acreage planted to the new variety, which is in limited supply. Next year, however, company spokesmen spokes-men say that virtually -all Utah acreage will be planted to the new seed. While mechanization of spring operations in Utah's beet fields is still developing, the harvest is now done entirely with machinery, cutting cut-ting farm costs of the harvest work significantly. |