Sugar beet producers say the sugar beet is drooping from lack of water and the high temperatures that persisted for two weeks. If the harvesting of sugar beet is not begun, the agricultural producers will sustain losses even if the crop is expected to be good.

Nicolae Moraru, head of the Association of Sugar Beet Producers, has told IPN that a number of farmers will meet today in Falesti to agree when to start the harvest. “It hasn’t rained for several weeks. Now the sugar beet is still green, with large and fresh leaves. But the roots are becoming dry. The plants now use the own reserves of water,” he said.

The sugar beet producers’ leader also said that many farmers do not want to start the harvest as they hope that it will rain in a day or two. “We should not risk this way as we already lost the crops in 2007, 2009 and 2012 because we didn’t start the harvest earlier. They hope it will rain as they can collect 50 tonnes per hectare instead of 40 tonnes. But they risk losing everything. We now do not have possibilities of irrigating the sugar beet fields,” stated Nicolae Moraru.

According to him, the sugar beet may be gathered from next week and some of the processing plants announced that they will start to collect sugar beet from August 20. As many as 26,000 hectares have been sowed with sugar beet this year. At least 40 tonnes of sugar beet are to be gathered from one hectare, twice more than last year.