I grew up on a sugar beet farm in the Red River Valley (which is actually a glacial lakebed rather than an actual river valley). I hauled many, many, many loads of beets into the Moorhead factory. I spent many, many, many summer days walking up and down the beet fields with a hoe in my hand. Also spent a lot of days driving the topper ahead of the harvester.
Wow- thanks for the close up of the sugar beet factory. When was a kid I drove grain truck close to Drayton. I thought it was so cool that when it turned dark the huge "American Crystal Sugar Co." sign would light up and you could see it for miles. Fun memories. Thanks
Things are a lot more organized and easier than back when I was young. The farmers used single axle trucks, fewer trucks per farm, and the line at the plant was up to a 1/2 mile long. A lot of down time. This was before Drayton and Hillsboro were built. There were no piling stations, instead there were loadings stations that dumped directly into open rail cars.
When I was a kid my dad would drive the beet trucks for my aunt and uncle. I rode along with the topper, digger, and shotgun with my dad to the piler. The newer diggers certainly dig a wider track. My uncle's digger I think could only do four rows. He pulled it with a 4755 John Deere.
I live in the Treasure Valley, which is in SW Idaho, where they grow a lot of sugar beets among other crops. Amalgamated Sugar has a plant in Nampa, ID, so trucks hauling harvested beets are a common sight this time of year.
Cool to watch your videos, I lived in Minto ND just south of Grafton. I worked for Altendorf Trucking as mechanic, they hauled a massive amount of potatoes mainly. I've been through Drayton multiple times
And on the box of seed you buy. Has the plant rate. And beta seed use to guarantees 98% of the seeds will grow. Not sure if they still do that. That is the plant I toured in 2017. Enjoy the other side of the beet industry that we never had the chance to see. Thanks Mitch from Oregon
I live in western Nebraska and have a large sugar beet factory here as well and the harvest just started and with the drought its not been a great crop this year
Very cool video. I actually work at a sugar plant in Michigan. I've been a lime kiln foreman, carbonator, and currently a beet end foreman. I'm more then willing to give you information on how the precessing of the beet happens!
love to see post harvest tour of the beet plant. You gave us alot more info this year, but would be great to see how the clean, chop, extract sugar, crystalize sugar and other by products.
These factories are really cool to tour around. I worked as a contractor at the plant in hillsboro. Worked in there lime building, lime kiln and a rotating kiln for the beets. Spent atleast a month doing that. I might still have a bunch of pics to share if you'd like.
I worked out in Fort Morgan Colorado a few years back and sugar beets were big there too. I used to run a cotton picker back here in North Carolina. Thanks for the video.
Us here in Southern Manitoba, your Canadian Neighbours to the North of you, used to grow lots of sugar beets as well. As a young kid we hand hoed many, many acres of sugar beets. As a young kid it was a great way to make some cash. Put then it all shut down and moved across the border into North Dakota! Most farmers weren’t sad to see it go!
Hoi Mitch, just got my beets harvested here in The Netherlands. One question: what is that in the sky at 1:58? It is on the left side of the screen at a height between your eyes and tip of the nose. Thanks.
I toured a factory in Minnesota I believe. I just know we were on the Minnesota, n & s Dakota border. It was a huge plant on a huge piece of property. I worked for Beta Seed in Albany Or. I pelleted and colored, and ran the packaging department. Awesome. I think this was the factory I toured. Wow. Crazy... left beta seed 3 yrs ago. The huge presses were so cool to watch.
Not suppose to if beets are going to be on the field the next year but here American crystal doesn’t allow you to grow beets on the same ground two years in a row. Think that’s how they avoid that.
Are those four lights in a diamond shape on the front of the tractor pulling the harvester to signal the truck driver to speed up---slow down or your full? How many tons on the average truck load. So say 15 ton average you could haul in 100 loads in the early phase. Do they pull a sample from each load to test for sugar content?
15ish tons in a triaxle and 23ish on a semi. Yes you are right! The lights are for that. They pull a sample from about every other or every third load. Something like that.
I’m not very familiar with sugar beets but I am with sugarcane and where I’m from the entire sugarcane industry in Hawaii shut down for good back in the mid 90’s after over 100 years, sugarcane was the main crop with more than a dozen mills during the 40’s through the 70’s and less than 12 during the 80’s through the 90’s
Was putting some sugar beets out for the deer today and chopping them up with a machete when I decided to lick one of the halves. To my surprise it was as sweet as table sugar. I thought it had to be refined and such to get the sweetness out, I was wrong.
How is the filter life on your case combine when harvesting beets? We have a lot of corn and soy bean harvests near here and all i hear is how much those case combines plug filters quick during harvest.
dang i was going to comment on one of your videos and see if yall needed some drivers or some help since my buddy isnt farming beets this year up in montana
You got a long way to go to haul to Kindred. Those buildings hold between 6 and 7 days worth of beets each for the factories. They are the last ones hauled into the factory in the spring. The beets your dumping in this video will be used during pre harvest.
This was interesting. I know nothing about beet harvesting. Would like to see how the beet harvesting machine works. Would also like to know what kind of beans you were harvesting, and how that bean head works. The area of the USA that I lived in, when we said "beans", we were talking about soybeans. Around the 5:20 mark,.....the person that you were talking to on the radio, sounds about the same way you do. Was that a Brother or your Dad? You seem to have a good "Poker Face" when you are kidding us. Did you have to get Jenny to help tension that belt?
Hahah yes, that’s my brother Jason! “Beans” usually refers to Dry Edible Beans around here depending on who you ask and what time of the season. I usually refer to soybeans as soys to avoid confusion up here hahaha. Jenny supports me behind the scenes in many ways! So I’d say that counts!
Yes in oregon theres a mennonite family that takes seed from our plant from our cleaning machines. It goes into small semi trailers that they pickup regularly. Take it to there plant in Harrisburg Or. And pellet the seed and sell it to feed cows. They also do it w grass seed from the grass seed Capitol of the world Linn county Oregon.
We have a very large processing plant here in Nampa I’d. The campaign has been going for about a month. We all know when they start. The aroma in our town becomes very stinky. But we all know it’s money.
Have you started campaign yet? I noticed it is the first of October today.i miss that part of harvest the most.if you need an extra truck driver send me a plane ticket
It is, slightly! ha ha, The Red River Valley of the North and the Red River of the North are actually the remnants of ancient Lake Agassiz. The lake once covered much of northwestern Minnesota the eastern Dakotas and southern Manitoba. When the glaciers melted and the lake dried and receded they left behind many many acres of the flat fertile agricultural land we have today. It only rises a few hundred feet in 40-100 ish miles from either side of the river. There are some ridges that were the banks of the ancient lake Agassiz about those distances from the river today. Oh, and it's unique in that the Red River of the North flows north into Canada's Lake Winnipeg and then into the Hudson Bay.
Im a retired grain faer from north central Montana my daughter iscavmicro biolagist doingvresearch for the dnrc in nrw orleans and has research grants from the suhir beet processers from several norther states something tovdo with sugar content in stored beets
I drove a truck from field to piler waayyyyyyy back when I was young in western Minnesota,long days & hard work,but the only thing that sucked was the farmer…mechanics demanded cash in advance because he hated paying his bills. Our pay was docked for ANYTHING he could think of to keep from paying what we earned. He found out when harvest was in full swing and the second time he screwed the drivers,(3 of us),and no one showed up to drive and there were no keys to be found. Understand that he lost his contract a year or two later…
@14:29 Old Joke but it checks out. "That's the crematorium, you can tell who they're burning by the smoke. There's a Jew, there's a gypsy, there's a dissident..."
Growing up as kid in south . I always hear poor farmers. But since y tube, and farmers making videos. I see brand new ac farm equipment. Big stuff. New trucks. I don't see poor. Think government kicks in tone money . That government doesn't have.
Kinda neat video. But, I'd rather see a video of your harvesting equipment or the plant! More interested in harvest equipment. Why did you blur faces of workers at the piling plant? Are they future Biden voters? Lol.
Always glad to see a new video from my buddy in North Dakota, greeting from western Washington state.
I grew up on a sugar beet farm in the Red River Valley (which is actually a glacial lakebed rather than an actual river valley). I hauled many, many, many loads of beets into the Moorhead factory. I spent many, many, many summer days walking up and down the beet fields with a hoe in my hand. Also spent a lot of days driving the topper ahead of the harvester.
If you had to hoe fields, you are the real deal my friend. I was too young/not born yet when beets needed to be thinned. Keep it sweet!
I think it is neat how the piler "cleans" the field beets and gives you the dirt back to return to the field. Saves them, saves you. NIIIIIICE.
Its also better for storage. Before they are going in the plant they are propably washed again to remove the rest of the dirt that was left behind
Wow- thanks for the close up of the sugar beet factory. When was a kid I drove grain truck close to Drayton. I thought it was so cool that when it turned dark the huge "American Crystal Sugar Co." sign would light up and you could see it for miles. Fun memories. Thanks
I hauled beets for 8 years back in the 70s and 80s this brings back some memories
We are on the far eastern fringe, crookston side of the Red River of the North. Have kinda long haul laps compared to what you run, but it works.
Here in Germany They use self propelled harvesters. And store the beets some months on the field.
Gotta love your videos. You, my friend are a funny guy. We lived in Mitchell Nebraska for a while and there's a sugar factory there also.
Thanks for the tour of the place. Great video Mitch.
Things are a lot more organized and easier than back when I was young. The farmers used single axle trucks, fewer trucks per farm, and the line at the plant was up to a 1/2 mile long. A lot of down time. This was before Drayton and Hillsboro were built. There were no piling stations, instead there were loadings stations that dumped directly into open rail cars.
In germany they are going to do that to transport them to the otherside of the country
6yrs, 1 month and week-ish with ACS. Was in drayton for a year, lived in big ol Edinburg. Small world, congrats on a solid YT following.
When I was a kid my dad would drive the beet trucks for my aunt and uncle. I rode along with the topper, digger, and shotgun with my dad to the piler. The newer diggers certainly dig a wider track. My uncle's digger I think could only do four rows. He pulled it with a 4755 John Deere.
I live in the Treasure Valley, which is in SW Idaho, where they grow a lot of sugar beets among other crops. Amalgamated Sugar has a plant in Nampa, ID, so trucks hauling harvested beets are a common sight this time of year.
Cool to watch your videos, I lived in Minto ND just south of Grafton. I worked for Altendorf Trucking as mechanic, they hauled a massive amount of potatoes mainly. I've been through Drayton multiple times
Would the factory let you do a video tour? I live in the south and those beets look like a Turnip root that we cook and eat.
That’s a great question! I would love to be able to do that.
Good idea!
@Joel hey Joel! Email me at beetfarminmitch@gmail.com
And on the box of seed you buy. Has the plant rate. And beta seed use to guarantees 98% of the seeds will grow. Not sure if they still do that. That is the plant I toured in 2017. Enjoy the other side of the beet industry that we never had the chance to see. Thanks Mitch from Oregon
I live in western Nebraska and have a large sugar beet factory here as well and the harvest just started and with the drought its not been a great crop this year
Thanks for showing up at our piler. My wife and I worked piler #1at prepile 😀
Very cool video. I actually work at a sugar plant in Michigan. I've been a lime kiln foreman, carbonator, and currently a beet end foreman. I'm more then willing to give you information on how the precessing of the beet happens!
love to see post harvest tour of the beet plant. You gave us alot more info this year, but would be great to see how the clean, chop, extract sugar, crystalize sugar and other by products.
Your curiosity will take you far Mitch! Blessings.
I did a shutdown in at that sugar plant a few years ago. I helped with the chippers and a few other things.
Spent the summer there this year, was a pretty good time worked all over the plant.
Don't forget about the 6th factory. Let's give some love to Min-Dak in Wahpeton.
Wow really cool to see another part of farming. All I see is crystal sugar in kitchen.
That’s the good stuff!
I've hauled out of the Crystal Sugar plant in Hillsboro. I lived on and around dairy farms so I know very little about farming sugar beets
I worked in the Hillsboro factory for 37 years and am now retired.
These factories are really cool to tour around. I worked as a contractor at the plant in hillsboro. Worked in there lime building, lime kiln and a rotating kiln for the beets. Spent atleast a month doing that. I might still have a bunch of pics to share if you'd like.
I worked out in Fort Morgan Colorado a few years back and sugar beets were big there too. I used to run a cotton picker back here in North Carolina. Thanks for the video.
Us here in Southern Manitoba, your Canadian Neighbours to the North of you, used to grow lots of sugar beets as well. As a young kid we hand hoed many, many acres of sugar beets. As a young kid it was a great way to make some cash. Put then it all shut down and moved across the border into North Dakota! Most farmers weren’t sad to see it go!
Hoi Mitch, just got my beets harvested here in The Netherlands. One question: what is that in the sky at 1:58? It is on the left side of the screen at a height between your eyes and tip of the nose. Thanks.
I toured a factory in Minnesota I believe. I just know we were on the Minnesota, n & s Dakota border. It was a huge plant on a huge piece of property. I worked for Beta Seed in Albany Or. I pelleted and colored, and ran the packaging department. Awesome. I think this was the factory I toured. Wow. Crazy... left beta seed 3 yrs ago. The huge presses were so cool to watch.
Very interesting. Keep up the good work! Be safe!
You seem to be in my part of North Dakota we're in Walsh county nice to find a north Dakota farm UA-cam
Interesting, you dump tare in your field. In Idaho where I grew up we were not allowed to dump in the field due to nematode cross contamination.
Not suppose to if beets are going to be on the field the next year but here American crystal doesn’t allow you to grow beets on the same ground two years in a row. Think that’s how they avoid that.
@@codypaulson1067 we didn't grow beets two years in a row but maybe it wasn't a rule.
Ya you don’t grow beets on the same ground 2 years in a row right?
Are those four lights in a diamond shape on the front of the tractor pulling the harvester to signal the truck driver to speed up---slow down or your full? How many tons on the average truck load. So say 15 ton average you could haul in 100 loads in the early phase. Do they pull a sample from each load to test for sugar content?
15ish tons in a triaxle and 23ish on a semi.
Yes you are right! The lights are for that. They pull a sample from about every other or every third load. Something like that.
Uff da! I love it!
My many great grandfather, Andreas Marggraf invented the process of sugar extraction from sugar beets in the 1700's in Germany
I’m not very familiar with sugar beets but I am with sugarcane and where I’m from the entire sugarcane industry in Hawaii shut down for good back in the mid 90’s after over 100 years, sugarcane was the main crop with more than a dozen mills during the 40’s through the 70’s and less than 12 during the 80’s through the 90’s
Saw those dusek trucks at ardoch while I was hauling there. How come you didn’t drive a semi? Leave the tri axles for the newbie’s
Was putting some sugar beets out for the deer today and chopping them up with a machete when I decided to lick one of the halves. To my surprise it was as sweet as table sugar. I thought it had to be refined and such to get the sweetness out, I was wrong.
amazing video 👏🏼👏🏼 we are organic but before we switched we did beets as well
How is the filter life on your case combine when harvesting beets? We have a lot of corn and soy bean harvests near here and all i hear is how much those case combines plug filters quick during harvest.
Sweet video
Thanks for the video, very interesting.
What are the odds I see this video, was up in Drayton at Crystal Sugar for months this summer doing millwright and welding work.
dang i was going to comment on one of your videos and see if yall needed some drivers or some help since my buddy isnt farming beets this year up in montana
We still need drivers! If he’s interested next year. Let me know!
Cool! We have sugarcane down south.
Have you ever tried Baja gold Mountain Dew?
You mean coors light😮
Nice mitch Jorgen
Hahahah, I have not! I better get me some! @I Like Farming
Do any of the trucks have a "Beet Man" graphic from American Dad?
Hey my truck box made the video!🎉🎉🎉 lol
I'm in Minnesota, I have my own truck with an end dump, how do I get into this?
You got a long way to go to haul to Kindred. Those buildings hold between 6 and 7 days worth of beets each for the factories. They are the last ones hauled into the factory in the spring. The beets your dumping in this video will be used during pre harvest.
How many pounds of sugar do you average per ton of beets.
My Grandfather had a 640-acre farm in Toston Montana where he grew sugar beets. I spent 2 summers there and I swear he really raised mosquitoes
Hahahah, you got a good laugh outta me on that.
Are you farming in drayton?
This was interesting. I know nothing about beet harvesting. Would like to see how the beet harvesting machine works. Would also like to know what kind of beans you were harvesting, and how that bean head works. The area of the USA that I lived in, when we said "beans", we were talking about soybeans. Around the 5:20 mark,.....the person that you were talking to on the radio, sounds about the same way you do. Was that a Brother or your Dad? You seem to have a good "Poker Face" when you are kidding us. Did you have to get Jenny to help tension that belt?
Hahah yes, that’s my brother Jason! “Beans” usually refers to Dry Edible Beans around here depending on who you ask and what time of the season. I usually refer to soybeans as soys to avoid confusion up here hahaha.
Jenny supports me behind the scenes in many ways! So I’d say that counts!
You can find some videos from a sugarbeetplant in the netherlands they show it step for step
Sugar beet dummy question: are there animal feed byproducts from beet processing?
Yes the Pulp and molasses. The molasses you buy in the store is from cane sugar. Beet molasses is gross.
Yes in oregon theres a mennonite family that takes seed from our plant from our cleaning machines. It goes into small semi trailers that they pickup regularly. Take it to there plant in Harrisburg Or. And pellet the seed and sell it to feed cows. They also do it w grass seed from the grass seed Capitol of the world Linn county Oregon.
We have a very large processing plant here in Nampa I’d. The campaign has been going for about a month. We all know when they start. The aroma in our town becomes very stinky. But we all know it’s money.
Have you started campaign yet? I noticed it is the first of October today.i miss that part of harvest the most.if you need an extra truck driver send me a plane ticket
We just did tonight!
What kind of beans are harvesting?
Hey Russell, they are pinto beans!
You got One Sweet Business there dude . . .
Enjoy your videos
For a valley doesn't the land have to be sloped?
It is, slightly! ha ha, The Red River Valley of the North and the Red River of the North are actually the remnants of ancient Lake Agassiz. The lake once covered much of northwestern Minnesota the eastern Dakotas and southern Manitoba. When the glaciers melted and the lake dried and receded they left behind many many acres of the flat fertile agricultural land we have today. It only rises a few hundred feet in 40-100 ish miles from either side of the river. There are some ridges that were the banks of the ancient lake Agassiz about those distances from the river today. Oh, and it's unique in that the Red River of the North flows north into Canada's Lake Winnipeg and then into the Hudson Bay.
where is north dakota
Would love to harvest mine been shut down for 2 days for heat.
ive personally hauled to drayton plant too
Im a retired grain faer from north central Montana my daughter iscavmicro biolagist doingvresearch for the dnrc in nrw orleans and has research grants from the suhir beet processers from several norther states something tovdo with sugar content in stored beets
I drove a truck from field to piler waayyyyyyy back when I was young in western Minnesota,long days & hard work,but the only thing that sucked was the farmer…mechanics demanded cash in advance because he hated paying his bills. Our pay was docked for ANYTHING he could think of to keep from paying what we earned. He found out when harvest was in full swing and the second time he screwed the drivers,(3 of us),and no one showed up to drive and there were no keys to be found. Understand that he lost his contract a year or two later…
@14:29 Old Joke but it checks out. "That's the crematorium, you can tell who they're burning by the smoke. There's a Jew, there's a gypsy, there's a dissident..."
Is that a Chinese spy balloon in the sky at 1:58? 😆😆
Hahahahaha perhaps
That’s a 4 axle You are forgetting the steer axle
factory how about refinery
You are like the Male version of Laura Farms.
Growing up as kid in south . I always hear poor farmers. But since y tube, and farmers making videos. I see brand new ac farm equipment. Big stuff. New trucks. I don't see poor. Think government kicks in tone money . That government doesn't have.
Kinda neat video. But, I'd rather see a video of your harvesting equipment or the plant! More interested in harvest equipment. Why did you blur faces of workers at the piling plant? Are they future Biden voters? Lol.