SUGAR BEET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1938, Page 3

SUGAR BEET

EXPERIMENTS IN TARANAKI GOOD RESULTS RECORDED “After seeing good crops of sugar beet grown for two years on well over 100 farms of Central and South Taranaki, and with a wide range of soil fertility and climate, we have no hesitation in saying that sugar beet can be successfully grown in Taranaki,” states the annual report of the South Taranaki Boys’ and Girls’ Agricultural Clubs. Yields in the United Kingdom, from areas where the crop is grown commercially, range from eight to 25 tons an acre. In the South Taranaki club tests 49 plots gave an average yield of 45 tons 15cwt for roots only, compared with last year, when 57 plots averaged 48 tons 17 cwt.

The average would probably have been about 8 per cent lighter for washed roots. Analysis of the roots last year for sugar content disclosed a range of from 13.92 per cent of sucrose in large roots to 15.34 per cent in medium sized roots —considered a very satisfactory figure. Although the yields obtained in South Taranaki are so much greater than the results achieved commercially in the United Kingdom, the information obtained cannot necessarily be taken as indicating that a sugai’ beet industry in New Zealand would be any more profitable than in England, as other factors, such as labour costs, would have to be considered. The cost of growing sugar beet is no more, however, than for carrots or mangolds, acre for acre, and the yield and feeding value as shown point to beet being able to compete more than favourably with carrots and mangolds as a stock food.

The high yields might again swing farmers towards the growing of some root crops, considered to be a much sounder practice than complete reliance on grass, hay and ensilage. There was to be taken into account the value to stock of a greater variety in diet, in itself a corrective of stock ailments.