Fields are extremely wet near Hallock, Minnesota, but with a brief span of nice weather farmers are trying to harvest sugarbeets. “If it gets too cold for sugarbeets, we can harvest soybeans. We can at least do something,” says farmer Dan Younggren. “We’ve sat idle for 20-something days. It’s time to get back to work doing something.” Younggren is trying to look ahead at 2020, but it a challenge. “Let’s just say we can’t get sugarbeets out of the ground. It’s hard to put spring wheat in the ground, because the sugar in the beets tie up the nitrogen so bad, taking away from wheat,” explains Younggren. “If we can, we’ll knock the tops of the sugarbeets off and leave the root in the ground. We can put soybeans between the rows and go that way. Those are things rolling around in my head right now on how to prep for next year. In the meantime, we remain optimistic the sugarbeets will get out of the ground and into the pile.”
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