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Less foliar disease pressure on Minnesota sugar beets

Minnesota sugar beet growers saw less foliar disease pressure this year.

Todd Geselius with Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative says while conditions have not been ideal this growing season, it’s an improvement from 2016.

“We had some real weather issues last year that facilitated a lot of cercospora, which is a very devastating foliar disease for us.  It really cut our yields down last year.”

With harvest advancing, Geselius is optimistic yields will be closer to the record 29.9 tons per acre set in 2015.

Surprisingly, he says cool weather in August helped keep sugar beet diseases at bay.

“Between that and the growers being extremely diligent in keeping up with their fungicide applications, it probably helped us a fair bit to have a cooler August.”

Geselius tells Brownfield the opposite was true a year ago when heat and moisture later in the growing season allowed diseases like cercospora leaf spot to spread.