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Sugar Beet on a family farm in South Lincs 2020 - a thread.
I'll start by saying that I do not profess to being a particularly good sugar beet grower. We tend to grow about 20-30ha per year on heavy, smaller fields and harvest relatively early.
I'm not especially proud of our five year average of 84t/ha but I'm comfortable with it given the nature of our land and the fact that we have historically got some good winter wheat in afterwards.
For all of my working life, neonicotinoid seed treatments have very effectively controlled aphids during the early stages of the crop development. These aphids are the main vector for various viruses, such as Beet Yellows Virus, that can devastate yield.
For the 2019 crop onwards, these seed treatments were withdrawn with little notice by the then DEFRA secretary @michaelgove . The industry was not given sufficient time to adjust by developing resistant varieties, a process that takes many years.
I wrote to Mr Gove at the time. https://twitter.com/MikeNeaverson/status/941388164559785984
Instead we are left with a number of foliar applied broad-spectrum insecticides to control the aphids, mostly on emergency approvals. None of them are very effective.
Aphids are often an agronomic problem in South Lincs - we are low lying, warm and most importantly - we grow a lot of vegetables that provide a plentiful year-round habitat. I reckon we're likely the aphid capital of the country.
I think we dodged a bullet in 2019. Aphids came in relatively early and I sprayed two or three times according to the BBRO threshold guidelines.
We only saw a few patches of virus yellows in the crop, I think mainly due to the fact that only a small level of virus existed within the aphid population.
In hindsight I think virus may well have had a bigger effect on the 2019 yield than I originally thought. The crop established well and looked stunning all year. It was lifted late and I was disappointed to yield only 77t/ha.
Roll on to the the 2020 crop. It was a particularly dry, hot spring. Perfect for early drilling, slow beet establishment and a veritable plague of aphids.
Never mind the treatment threshold of 1 wingless aphid per 4 plants - we had 4 wingless aphid per cotyledon leaf within days of emergence.
I sprayed four insecticides on my beet this spring. They each worked for a few days but the aphid population recovered within days. I was hoping that most of these aphids weren't carrying the virus with them, just like in 2019.
By June, it was clear they really were carrying the virus, and by August, our fields looked yellow from margin to margin.
Skip forward to November, and the first half of our beet has been lifted and hauled into the factory by our superb local contractor. 34t/ha adjusted for sugar. Yes 34t/ha - vs a five year average of 84t/ha. A 60% decrease.
Admittedly it was a difficult spring and this must have had a factor, regardless of virus levels. But we’ve had equally difficult seasons before and just look back at our yield history. Until now, sugar beet has been remarkably consistent for a spring sown crop.
Plug these numbers into my budgets and it reveals a negative gross margin after contract drilling and harvesting. Plus we’ve still got all our usual overheads too, represented in here by a token (and conservative) £600/ha.
Even in our small way, I reckon the 2020 beet crop will loose us well over £20k all told.
Now plug these numbers into the 2021 budget including the virus insurance scheme. The scheme goes someway to mitigate the loss but still ends up in negative territory.
2020 was bad for aphids but my concern is that virus levels in the aphid population will be vastly higher than in winter 2019/20, and even a repeat of the moderate aphid year of 2019 will again result in highlighter yellow fields. I for one don’t want to take the risk.
I don't believe that natural predator species will ever keep up with the aphid explosion in the spring. I would like to try introducing beneficials but this is both unproven and prohibitively expensive. @Tom_Clarke tried some this year.
Couple this with the fact that the last two wet autumns have meant that I’ve been unable to get a sensible winter wheat crop in afterwards, I was already questioning beet’s place in the rotation anyway.
Here’s a list of things that need to happen for me to consider growing more beet.
Beet needs to be £26/t
Either neonic seed treatments
or resistant varieties that maintain current yields (or a corresponding increase in price)
Beet needs to be £26/t
Either neonic seed treatments
or resistant varieties that maintain current yields (or a corresponding increase in price)
Policy makers take note. Like hundreds of other growers, I'm right on the cusp of giving up. Take action now or forever loose a proud, historic and valuable British sugar industry. The ball is in your court.
END.
Phew
END.
Phew
I took a video of our superb local contractor lifting our last field the other day for old times sake as I’d imagine this will be the last beet grown on the farm. You forget how many support businesses will be effected by this.
