Pesticides praying of sugar beet

Not praying, spraying!

Gin praying sounds about right! 🙏

i thought they intended to lift the ban completely on neonicotinoids. One of the 'benefits' of Brexit. They are banned in the EU.

M0nica

i thought they intended to lift the ban completely on neonicotinoids. One of the 'benefits' of Brexit. They are banned in the EU.

The EU temporarily lifted the ban about 3 years ago because their sugar beet crops were being devastated. There was a lot of discussion about it at the time.

They could even in the EU I think (if i remember correctly), individually apply if spraying was required but this is a lifting.

Only this week exceptions to the previous ban have been halted in Europe by the European high court, these exceptions were primarily for sugar beet.

Pretty grim though.

I’m not sure of the effect on bees as it’s the seed that was treated last year in the UK?

The geese who come here to Norfolk for the winter eat the sugar beet tops left in the fields after harvesting. This doesn’t sound good.

We were arable farmers and the flea beetle completely devastated our rape crop on several years. Neo nics were the only thing that stopped these pests from killing the crop and as Jaxjacky writes, it is the seed that is treated prior to planting and it is NOT sprayed on the growing crop. Without the neonics we had to spray the emerging rape plants several times with other sprays, which didn’t save the crop.

We stopped growing rape completely and now grow peas as a break crop. Break crops are grown in rotation every three years to put nitrogen back into the soil, therefore enabling arable farmers to spread less chemically manufactured nitrogen on the land.

From the government:

... the persistence and mobility of neonicotinoids in soils could result in residues with the potential to cause unacceptable effects to bees in following crops.

This is just from SEED treatment.

There has to be mitigation. It's not just plant the seed with no connection in future years.

This is more about bees specifically:
xerces.org/publications/scientific-reports/how-neonicotinoids-can-kill-bees#:~:text=Neonicotinoids%20are%20a%20group%20of,making%20them%20toxic%20to%20bees.

I'd think we want sugar farming - yields about 50% of the yearly sugar need in UK. Good alternate crop, organic building to soil, jobs.

Norah

I'd think we want sugar farming - yields about 50% of the yearly sugar need in UK. Good alternate crop, organic building to soil, jobs.

An aside, really, but we should, in regard to the nation's health, cut back on our sugar use and production.

Is there any compelling farming reason (apart from the profit from sugar beet growing) why farmers couldn't cut back on their sugar beet production and grow less health damaging crops?

MaizieD

Norah

I'd think we want sugar farming - yields about 50% of the yearly sugar need in UK. Good alternate crop, organic building to soil, jobs.

An aside, really, but we should, in regard to the nation's health, cut back on our sugar use and production.

Is there any compelling farming reason (apart from the profit from sugar beet growing) why farmers couldn't cut back on their sugar beet production and grow less health damaging crops?

We really can't tell people what to eat, can we?

If we buy sugar, better to have jobs/production here in Suffolk?

Sugar crop is used in 'off times' to other crops, builds the soil.

Opinions. I allow I have an interest to sugar remaining a crop.

We really can't tell people what to eat, can we?

No, but they can be advised, Norah.

But we could legislate to cut down on the amount of sugar used in manufactured foods.

Can you explain what the 'soil building' properties of a root, such as sugar beet, crop are?

Didn’t we used to import more sugar from the West Indies? and I’m sure white sugar was more expensive obviously.

MaizieD Can you explain what the 'soil building' properties of a root, such as sugar beet, crop are?

After field harvest dry leaves are turned into the earth. Soil building.

Norah

MaizieD Can you explain what the 'soil building' properties of a root, such as sugar beet, crop are?

After field harvest dry leaves are turned into the earth. Soil building.

Punctuation helps.

After field harvest, dry leaves are turned into the soil.

Some soil building, probably less than a cereal crop, it’s a good alternative crop in the eastern counties and neonicotinoids are allowed in certain areas, as they are allowed for rape crops.
The alternative insecticides are largely ineffective, effective chemicals that are allowed outside the EU were banned some years ago.

There has been a sharp decline of all insects in recent years, I get far fewer insects on my car windscreen than in the past and hardly any in the house. Something is going on, the blanket use of neonicotinoids on many crops including cereals is highly suspect, although nothing is proven. Yield of many crops has declined with more crop failures, it all contributes to higher food costs.

Now we are not bound to EU regulations some will change, more chemicals, possibly GM crops will be permitted allowing more pest resistant crops, wether the politics of that can be resolved is another matter.

I think soil-building is probably a myth put out by "British Sugar" who sell off all the topsoil they acquire along with the sugar beets.

Harvesting sugar beet causes a loss of topsoil - all root crops cause some soil loss during harvesting - but beet is bad because it is harvested in autumn, often in wet conditions. This is more damaging to the soil structure.

A literature review of "soil loss from harvest" data measured in Europe revealed average soil loss due to crop harvesting values for sugar beet to be four times greater than for potatoes.

British sugar has its own brand "Topsoil". They have set up a business in selling this by-product. On their own website they say:
Annually we recycle at least 200,000 tonnes of sandy loam topsoil which is delivered with the sugar beets we buy from farmers each year.
I personally think they should be sending it back to the farmers!

I don't know how much leaving tops there to feed the soil mitigates any of this.

This is a side-issue to the neonicotinoids.

By selling the soil ( some for compost for potting on plants) surely they are just spreading around the neonicotinoids in the soil?

The bees won’t stand a chance

Leaves feed structure and nutrients back into sandy soils. If you are growing (garden) veg in a garden with sandy soil(I have). The thing we were always being told to do, was to dig compost into it, to build up the soil, make it more capapble of holding moisture and because it contained the nutrients plants needed that got washed through sandy soil.

Water drains fast through sandy soil, and its gritty texture means that it doesn't adhere to vegetables when they are dug up, so the beets will have relatively little soil on them when they reach the beet factory, comparedd with crops grown in more clayey soils.,

I fund a video of sugar beet being harvested. The enormous machine cleaned most of the soil from the beet before it was tipped into a wagon to be taken away.

I therefore assume that this machine is not in general use, or, that there was still sufficient residue on the beets for the processors to clean it off and make some money for it.

I was thinking about the impaction of the soil as I watched it, NotSpaghetti. Not only was the machine itself massive, but so was the tractor pulling it, as were the separate tractor and trailer the beet was being discharged into.

And, TBH, I thought that the small amount of leaf being cut off and left on the soil wasn't really going to make a huge amount of difference to the soil fertility or structure. (I say this, knowing how far numerous bags of well rotted stable manure doesn't go on my veg plot...)