The sugar beet harvest in the Big Horn Basin ground to a permanent halt Friday as the latest severe cold front left about 30 percent of the crop in the ground.Ric Rodriguez, a Heart Mountain beet grower and vice chairman of the Western Sugar Cooperative board of directors, said co-op officials and Big Horn Basin Sugar Beet Growers Association representatives agreed Friday in a telephone conference to stop the harvest “because of the freezing cold temperatures.”

Officials also ended the Montana harvest on Friday, Rodriguez said.

High temperatures in Powell Friday and Saturday reportedly were in the mid 20s, though temperature reports varied among sources. But temperatures dropped to zero or below both nights.

Sunday's highs were in the single digits and dropped to 8 degrees below zero by Monday morning.

The National Weather Service expected another sub-zero night Monday and lows near zero for the rest of the week.

Highs of 10 degrees are forecasted for mid-week, with warmer high temperatures possible later this week, possibly reaching into the 20s on Friday.

Beets still in the field are already in bad condition, Rodriguez said, and the latest cold front could drive frost into the ground far enough to freeze the entire root.

“When it goes that deep, it's going to freeze down to the tips,” he said. That damages cell walls to the point the beets may disintegrate during the factory processing, he said.

Enough beets are stockpiled at receiving stations to run the Lovell factory for 21 to 23 days, Rodriguez said.

“We're dealing with some pile issues,” he said. Some beets are not storing very well. “The beets seem to be processing OK, but the factories have slowed down a little bit.”

Sugar content in the processed beets continues to drop, he said.

“Beets are burning sugar in the pile,” he said.

Rodriguez said he'd heard unconfirmed reports that some growers had 40-ton beets, meaning they could have harvested 40 tons per acre before the October freeze.

“I know there were some tremendous yields out there,” he said. Before the October frost, growers in the Lovell district were projected to harvest an estimated average 28 tons per acre on 17,600 acres.

Most growers who still have sugar beets in the field likely will disk them under, Rodriguez said. Crop insurance may play a role in what happens to those fields, he said, although some growers may feed livestock on the beets during the winter. Once the ground thaws, growers can start getting ready for next year, and most will probably plant barley in the spring, the normal crop rotation, he said.

If there is a bright side, Rodriguez said, it's that Western Sugar's beet crops in Colorado and Nebraska are in better condition. “This could have been real devastating to the co-op” if it operated only in Wyoming and Montana, he said.

Nebraska growers endured a severe spring with hailstorms and other problems but turned in a decent beet crop, he said. Western Sugar Cooperative growers in Colorado's Larimer County delivered more beets than ever, according to an Associated Press report that said growers received $3.2 million for beets grown on 2,400 acres.

Penrose beet grower Fred Hopkin said he hopes growers don't dwell on the problems of this harvest but look ahead to spring planting for next year.

“September first was a wonderful time to be a sugar beet farmer,” he said. “Now a lot has changed,” including the unknown outcome of a federal lawsuit over Roundup Ready beet seed and the prospect of fewer sugar beet acres under contract to Western Sugar in 2010. Still, he expects to grow Roundup Ready beets next year, he said.

With sugar content dwindling to around 14 percent and the condition of the beets deteriorating, he understands why the harvest ended, but wishes growers had been given one more chance to dig beets at the end of November in hopes that they would store until they could be processed. Instead, Western Sugar officials suspended the dig because of problems with piled beets.

Klodette Stroh, national sugar chairwoman of Women in Farm Economics, said Monday she hopes for action after the first of the year on the $12 million disaster declaration sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Every time I go to town I see those beets in the ground,” she said. “It breaks my heart.” Beet growers have high input costs, around $1,100 to $1,200 per acre, and this year's crop of Roundup Ready beets was especially good, she said.

Stroh said she will continue working with federal officials to be sure growers get fair prices for this year's sugar. The current Farm Bill limits sugar imports until after U.S. inventory is tallied in April, but she said Mexico still could send sugar into the United States under NAFTA.

“My faith tells me that something good could come out of all this,” she said, although she is not sure what it will be. She added that many local dry bean growers also lost part of their crops.