Rising sugar levels are providing optimism that this year’s sugar-beet harvest could produce adjusted yields in line with the five-year average of 65t/ha.

Delivered sugar beet was showing average sugar levels of just 16.6% up until 10 October, according to campaign statistics presented on the NFU Sugar website.

But levels have risen in the past week, approaching 17% as a result of the better weather, although it remains the second-lowest sugar level since 2004, and much lower than the 20% mark reached at the same time last season.

Early sugars were very disappointing, William Martin, NFU sugar board chairman said. “And no surprise – if you get a very dry early summer and the crop struggles for moisture, then it gets rain, the beet swell up and dilute levels, and you then need sunshine to put the sugars back in. And as anyone cutting cereals in August and September knows, we didn’t get that.

“But the better weather is having an effect, and sugar levels, thank goodness, have picked up.”

Continued fine weather should put adjusted yields in line with the five-year average, he suggested. “The crop isn’t going to break any records, but I am much more encouraged than I was a month ago.”

On his own farm, near Ely in Cambridgeshire, the first crop lifted at the end of September had yielded around 70t/ha adjusted. “It is a little below our five-year average, but as you would expect for an early-season crop.”

Yields this season were likely to be “more normal” following two exceptional seasons, said Andrew Crossley, farm manager at Trumpington Farm Company, Cambridge.

His initial 40ha had averaged 63t/ha, down on his 70t/ha yield average, he said. Sugars were similar to the 10-year average of 17.6%.

“I’ve heard people have got lower than we have – I’m not sure why ours are higher.”

Beet remaining to be lifted were looking as healthy as it had all season, he said. “When we lift again I expect yields to increase after the rain and sunshine we’ve had.”

Mr Crossley’s beet was among the 200ha lifted by John Goodchild‘s contracting team, based out of Bartlow Estates, Cambridgeshire.

“The feedback I’ve received suggests yields range from 63 to 73t/ha adjusted, with sugars ranging from 16.1 to 17.6%. Typically around this time of year, we would expect yields around 70t/ha, so I don’t think it is necessarily too far down.”

Lifting conditions were good, he said. “But the later start has put contractors under pressure to lift beet on heavier land for it to be turned over into a wheat crop.”