Record Sugar Beet Harvest In Northern Wyoming

POWELL, Wyo. (AP) — A warm fall and late rain helped boost the sugar beet crop in northern Wyoming.

The Western Sugar Cooperative announced this week that its Lovell factory district had a record harvest.

The harvest yielded 28.8 tons of beets per acre. That's above the 26-ton average seen last year as well as early predictions for this year's crop.

Randall Jobman of Western Sugar's Billings factory told the Powell Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/8358pkr ) that warmer weather and rain in September and October helped beets to continue to grow late in the season. An inch of rain fell in early October which temporarily stopped the harvest.

The last of Big Horn County's beets are expected to picked by the end of the week.