Sugar beets nipped by frost and dusted by wind early in May are coming back. Sugar officials said last week they should have plenty of time to thrive before the fall harvest begins.Heart Mountain grower Ric Rodriguez, who is also vice chairman of the Western Sugar Cooperative board of directors, said growers replanted almost 2,500 acres across the Lovell factory district in the Big Horn Basin to replace beets frozen when temperatures dipped into the 20s and lower for several nights.

That's about 12 percent of the total acreage planted this year, said Randall Jobman, an agricultural manager for Western Sugar in the Billings factory.

In addition to the cold temperatures, “we've had a lot of wind. That's reduced stand some,” Jobman said, but there's plenty of time in the growing season for the crop to recover. Beet harvest is set to start in September.

“When you live in the high plains, that's part of the weather pattern,” Jobman said.

Rodriguez said Lovell factory district growers planted slightly less than 17,000 acres this spring. Growers planted 17,600 acres last year but contracts were adjusted down to about 97 percent of last year's acres, he said. Western Sugar officials expect higher yields with Roundup Ready sugar beets, he said.

“It wasn't a huge replant,” he said. “There's some thinner stands out there” where fields lost some seedlings and growers did not replant, but “most of the crop weathered pretty well.”

Barley is doing well with the cool spring weather, but for vigorous sugar beet growth “we need some warm weather,” Rodriguez said.

With sugar beets left in the ground after last fall's limited harvest, Rodriguez said he disked his under the surface and planted barley. Some growers are planting beans over their beets, he said.

Rodriguez's Heart Mountain barley fields are “really taking off,” he said, although “there's always a chance of late release of nitrogen” from beets left in the ground. He hopes if that nitrogen release occurs, it will be after the barley is harvested.

Fred Hopkin, who raises sugar beets at Penrose east of Powell, didn't replant any of his fields although he did lose some plants.

“Our stands are adequate, but they're not great,” Hopkin said. After a couple of warm days, his beet plants are coming up fast, he said.

“It's like they want to make up for lost time,” he said. Despite the wind and cold weather, “this isn't all that untypical.”