The recent warm and windy weather has been ideal to help us get back planting
We are making good progress with planting Sugar Beet on the Estate at the moment. The warm and windy weather over the weekend has been great to help dry the land out enough so we can get back planting some of our spring crop.
Here, Rob is planting some of this year’s sugar beet. We are now about half way through planting our 140 hectares of sugar beet (approx. 350 acres). Fingers crossed for the continued good weather!!
To plant our sugar beet we use a special drill or planter called a ‘precision planter’, because it plants the sugar beet seeds in rows 50cm apart, separating each seed by 16cm. This is done to give each individual plant an equal amount of space, allowing the sugar beet seed to grow evenly, giving maximum yield and making the crop uniform and easier to harvest.
You can just about see the green seed in the row in the red circles.
These sugar beet seeds will hopefully go on to produce big sugar beet roots which, once harvested, will be taken to the sugar beet factory where the sugar is extracted and turned into crystalised sugar.
It could then be bagged and sold in shops as Silver Spoon Sugar or it could be used as the ingredients in food you purchase.
Who knows, this sugar beet could even be used to make one of the cakes in Roots Café!
