BEET SUGAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 122, 25 May 1937, Page 5

BEET SUGAR

A NEW INDUSTRY

GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENTS

An announcement that the. Government was giving consideration to the establishment, of'a' beet-sugar industry in New Zealand was made by the Minister" of' Agriculture (the.Hon.; Wi L. Martin) last evening. ' "During the past season the Department of Agriculture has been carrying out experiments on the growing of sugar beet in 'different parts of New Zealand, and a total of 29 trials has involved the sowing 'of approximately 20 acres in this crop," said the Minister. "The establishment, of a beetsugar industry Js-at'preseht under consideration by the and the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, is investigating the industry during his visit to Great Britain.. Before anything else is done, however, U has to be proved that we can grow sugar beet satisfactorily^ in; this country, and some idea of the costs arffcMabour involved on the farm has to be determined. It is with this purpose in view that these experiments were conducted and the crops are now being weighed and analysed. "Hitherto individual trials with sugar beet have indicated that the crop can be grown - successfully, under- our conditions, but- Jlie trials now bping conducted are,:on..\a lafger scale; and several of them occupy over an acre of ground, so that they are truly representative of actual farming conditions. Moreover, the varieties grown are those v;hich from long experience have been shown by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany to be the best, in Great Britain. ; ' ' '. ■ FAIRLY.HIGH YIELDS. "Unfortunately, the weather conditions during the past season have not been favourable to most of the crops, and in the main considerably more cultivation than usual has been'necessary to keep'down weeds. In spite of such adverse conditions, however, a preliminary survey of the experiments which have just been concluded has indicated that fairly high yields of sugar will be obtained from most of the areas. Alth6ugh»the crops have not yet reached full maturity, the yields of topped and washed roots in the best twelve.trials range from 11 to'2l tons per acre, while the content of sugar ranges from 10 to 21 per cent. , The results in these already compare favourably with the yields of sucrose from prize-winning crops grown in Great Britain. "It is. not possible .at this stage to give any indication of the actual returns or the costs involved, because the crops are not yet ready for harvesting. Under working conditions, however,, a factory would now be commencing to ( draw supplies, and it is therefore necessary to investigate the yields of sugar over* a period during which a factory would normally be operating. I anticipate '.lie. collection of much valuable data ' from the experiments, although in order to give more reliable information as regards seasonal conditions it is likely they will have to be repeated during another year.".