AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho — Amalgamated Sugar Co. plans to commence with early harvest on Sept. 8 and open its factories two days later, in anticipation of a crop officials are optimistic will set a fifth consecutive yield record.
Though Amalgamated leaders are elated about the prospects of another bumper crop, they say their growers are now producing as much volume as company facilities can handle. So they’re shifting focus toward finding varieties that produce more sugar per ton.
“We have hit the threshold of yield with our processing capacity, so to get more sugar, we’ve got to focus on getting more sugar in the beets,” explained Cody Bingham, a Jerome farmer who chairs the Seed and Research Alliance, a committee of growers that makes variety approval decisions.
Amalgamated, which averaged a respectable 17.25 percent sugar last season following a down year in 2013, has set a goal of consistently reaching 18 percent sugar by 2020 with all of its commercial varieties.
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Source: Capital Press
