Producers wondering what to do with excess sugar beets this fall can turn them into silage, a North Dakota State University Extension Service cattle expert says.

This year's North Dakota sugar beet crop was so large that processing plants won't be able to accept about 8 percent of it.
That means producers will have to decide how to dispose of the unwanted beets.

In North Dakota, producers harvested 259,000 acres this year, up from 243,000 in 2005, the National Agricultural Statistics Service reports. This year's average yield was 24 tons per acre, compared with 18.9 tons per acre in 2005.

Extension beef cattle specialist Greg Lardy says that to use sugar beets as silage, producers should remove the beet tops, lift the beets and then run them through a tub grinder to break them into pieces suitable for a silage pile.

However, beets alone are too moist (about 75 percent to 80 percent moisture) to make a good-quality silage, according to Lardy. Thus, they need to be mixed with some type of dry feed, such as hay or straw, to achieve the proper moisture content (60 percent to 70 percent) and be stored effectively as silage.
Producers can add dry feed to the beets as they are being chopped, which will eliminate the mixing step.

The beet-to-dry feed ratio should be 5 tons of chopped beets for every ton of dry feed to reach the proper moisture level in the silage.

Lardy recommends producers follow good silage-making practices to preserve the beets.

"The most important principle is to achieve an anaerobic environment," he says. "This is accomplished by packing the silage as it's being placed into a bunker or pit, sealing the silage with plastic, and monitoring the silage pile and repairing any holes in the plastic covering the bunker."

For more information on producing silage, visit the Extension Web site www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/dairy/as1254w.htm.

Producers in Alberta, Canada, have had good results with turning sugar beets into silage, but this is the first year North Dakota growers will try it.

"For producers with livestock, considering utilizing the excess beets as silage may be worthwhile," Lardy says. "Sugar beet silage contains slightly lower energy than corn or barley silage, but the silage still makes a very acceptable feed for beef cows, backgrounding calves or other ruminants."

One potential problem with sugar beet silage is the possibility of cattle choking on it. Alberta producers have reported occasional cases of choking. Lardy says that to reduce the risk, producers feeding sugar beet silage should observe their cattle regularly.

Mohamed Khan, Extension sugar beet specialist, says producers should not feed beet tops that were sprayed with triphenyltinhydroxide to livestock. Producers also should check other herbicide and pesticide restrictions prior to making silage or feeding sugar beets to livestock.