Poland's sugar beet producers expect a bigger average yield but smaller sugar content in the 2009/2010 campaign crop, the Polish Union of Sugar Beet growers said on Friday. The group still sees the sugar beet crop at 9 million tonnes but the sugar content dropped to 17.1 percent, while average yield rose to 54-55 tonnes per hectare. Sugar production is expected to come in close to 1.46 million tonnes.
"The long-lasting humidity in the soil does not make the sugar content increase, and it will not rise yet," Kazimierz Kobza, the association's head, told Reuters. But as the average yield rises it will not change very much the final sugar beet and sugar output, he added.
Previous forecasts for the sugar content and average yields stood at 17-17.5 percent and 50 tonnes per hectare respectively. Poland has had changeable weather since spring this year, high temperatures and warm days alternating with heavy rainfall, the first snow falling on October 14, and light rains occurring relatively often since then. Sugar beet growers in Poland have harvested about 80-85 percent of the crop.
However, the rains and humidity mean the harvest is proceeding with difficulty due to a shortage of heavy equipment needed to harvest in such conditions, and sometimes there are losses of up to 20 percent, Kobza said. "By the middle of January everyone should finish harvesting (the sugar beet)," he added. In the 2009/2010 campaign sugar beet has been sown on 180,000 hectares, up from 170,000 hectares in the previous season.