The long-awaited rain of the past few days has come far too late for the sugar beets—and, according to the Association of South German Sugar Beet Growers (VSZ), is actually detrimental. “The beets will use this rain solely for their own regeneration and will use the sugar they have already produced to grow new leaves,” the association stated in Ochsenfurt, Lower Franconia. “Even heavy rainfall will no longer be able to compensate for the harvest losses expected in the coming weeks.”
For southern Germany, the VSZ anticipates a historic crop failure, with some growers facing a total loss. “In particularly hard-hit regions such as the Rhine-Main area, Baden-Württemberg, and Franconia, some fields will yield almost nothing.”
