Picture of the week: Sugar beet harvest in Michigan
This picture comes from Michigan, where farmers are experiencing a muddy sugar beet harvest. By the end of last week, 81% of the sugar beet crop was harvested, 6% behind last year and 9% behind the five year average, according to the Cattle Network. Here is a historical background on sugar beets from the University of Minnesota:
Beets originally contained about two percent sugar, but sugar beet varieties were bred to maximize their sweetness. Minnesota beets now average 17-18 percent sugar. The process for extracting sugar was developed in Germany in 1747, and a research effort to increase sugar content was underwritten by Napoleon I in the early 1800s. He feared that France's sugar supply from Caribbean cane fields would be blockaded by the British, in their continued dispute with the new America and the impending War of 1812. By the 1890s the use of beets for sugar spread across Europe and reached this country.
Remember, we are always looking for more agricultural pictures from anywhere in the world.
Beets originally contained about two percent sugar, but sugar beet varieties were bred to maximize their sweetness. Minnesota beets now average 17-18 percent sugar. The process for extracting sugar was developed in Germany in 1747, and a research effort to increase sugar content was underwritten by Napoleon I in the early 1800s. He feared that France's sugar supply from Caribbean cane fields would be blockaded by the British, in their continued dispute with the new America and the impending War of 1812. By the 1890s the use of beets for sugar spread across Europe and reached this country.
Remember, we are always looking for more agricultural pictures from anywhere in the world.
Posted by Colvin & Co. at 11/6/2009 7:15 AM 
Categories: Picture of the Week
Tags: Harvest Weather farming
Categories: Picture of the Week
Tags: Harvest Weather farming
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