Profitable beet still possible – despite tighter margins

Careful crop management required

Prospects remain good for sugar beet – despite an 18% price reduction. But careful crop management is needed, say advisers.

Three pricing options were available to beet growers for the 2025/26 crop – a fixed price of £33/t for up to 70% of contract; a guaranteed base price of £30.70/t plus market-linked bonus; or a futures-linked contract for up to 50% of the contract.

At a cost of £1.40/t for farmers, could also opt for enhanced yield protection – the option to de-risk the crop by guaranteeing a minimum payment for 85% of a grower’s expected contract production.

Latest forecasts

Taken together, it all means sugar beet gross margins for the 2025/26 crop are set to fall by more than 30% due to a lower sugar beet price and stubbornly high variable costs, according to the latest Nix Farm Management Pocketbook.

Nix forecasts a potential £580/ha reduction in gross margin for a crop averaging 77t/ha for the coming season compared with 2024/25. Despite the drop, this is still a far higher gross margin than many other break crops.

But it’s not just variable costs that have risen, says James Webster-Rusk, senior agribusiness analyst for The Anderson Centre. Fixed costs have increased too – putting additional pressure on the bottom line.

Higher interest rates, increases in the minimum wage and changes to National Insurance contributions – depending on farm size – are also putting pushing up fixed costs on many beet growing farms, says Mr Webster-Rusk.

Reducing losses

So what can growers do to outperform the forecasts and minimise any loss in margins? After all, it’s not easy to reduce fixed cost structures, particularly with interest rates unlikely to fall much in the next three to five years.

One solution could be to look again at machinery and labour usage, says Mr Webster-Rusk. The top performing growers tend to make better use of contractors, suggests a recent Andersons update for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

Margins could also be protected by opting into Sustainable Farming Incentive options – especially overwintered cover crops ahead of beet. But while that would bring in an extra £129/ha, it does require attention to detail.

Ceres Rural managing partner Richard Means says farmers should be careful about the cover crop species or mix they choose – especially given their potential to provide a habitat for pests which go on to infest beet.

Green bridge

The potential to create a green bridge for aphids transmitting virus yellows in sugar beet, for example, emphasises the importance of destroying any cover crop in good time to aid successful establishment.

“If you jeopardise crop establishment and reduce yield by even 5% you lose more than you gain by having a cover crop,” he says. “I’d suggest only those who are comfortable with managing cover crops and are on the right soil types use that option.”

With neonicotinoid seed dressings not approved for the coming season, there is likely to be an elevated risk from virus yellows. That added risk, coupled with the lower beet price, makes the crop more challenging to manage profitably, says Mr Means.

While yield protection insurance was available through British Sugar, that option had to be taken up during contracting, so attention to detail for in-season management remains the only option to growers to mitigate risk.

Seedbed preparation

That starts with establishment, says fellow Ceres Rural partner Jock Willmott, who suggests growers should reduce risk with good seedbed preparations. “If a crop goes in well, it is so much easier to look after.”

In a wet winter and early spring, ploughing is generally a safer way of achieving good establishment. But in dry conditions, a deep cultivator in the autumn followed by shallower cultivations in the spring work better.

“Spring crop land has been relatively well prepped this autumn,” adds Mr Willmott.

Earlier drilling dates will generally maximise yield. Drilling after mid-April potentially leading to adjusted yield losses of over 4 t/ha per week, according to the British Beet Research Organisation.

Yield potential

But soil temperature and moisture – rather than calendar date – remain key to determining the best time to get the crop in the ground. Rapid and even establishment will influence how much yield potential is achieved.

Minimising the time to reach 12-16 true leaves reduces the risk of virus yellows. Weed control also plays a key role in enabling maximum crop growth by removing competition and avoiding any unnecessary check on the crop.

Input costs can be optimised and kept to a minimum without compromising weed control by mixing and matching straight herbicides rather than buying formulated products, suggests to Stuart Jackson of UPL.

“Herbicides are a significant part of growing costs,” he says. “But by using appropriate doses for the weed size and spectrum of straight metamitron, ethofumesate and phenmedipham it’s possible to reduce the cost of the programme.”

Flexible approach

The dose of ethofumesate hould be increased where weeds like cleavers, knotgrass, chickweed, orache or annual meadow grass are present. But higher doses of phenmedipham should be used for brassicas or speedwells.

“Using straights helps tailor the dose of one active substance without changing the others as the weed spectrum changes through the season or in different fields.”

Crop safety

Tailoring doses can also help reduce potential crop safety challenges, says Mr Jackson.

“The ratio of actives in a co-formulation is fixed, which means you can only lower the dose of the product to avoid crop safety risk.”

With straights, farmers and agronomists have more flexibility to tweak the ratio to ease crop safety risk while maintaining efficacy, he explains.