After Minnesota, we headed to Grafton, North Dakota where we had jobs lined up harvesting sugar beets. We were part of the ground crew at the piling sites. More on what that entails later.

While in Grafton we stayed at Grafton City RV Park. It’s a nice little RV park with full hook-ups. Their dog park had very a cute name, see picture below.

Before we harvested sugar beets, we had no idea that 70-80% of sugar in the USA comes from sugar beets, not sugar cane. Sugar beets are grown in cooler climates with about 5 months of growing season. States that grow sugar beets are Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Washington, and Oregon.

Cane sugar only grows in warmer climates and it takes 10-12 months before it is ready to harvest. States that grow cane sugar are Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.

Sugar Beet Piling Site

At each piling site, there are piling machines. A piling machine is a huge machine that piles the beats into piles up to 35 feet high and up to 100 yards wide. As the piles build up high and wide the piler moves back just a few inches at a time. Therefore these piles can be as long as the site has room for. I think the piles at our site were over one-quarter mile long.

Semi-trucks full of beets drive up, one on each side of the piler, and dump their load of beets. From there the beets get dumped on a conveyor. The conveyor dumps the beets onto the long boom arm that goes back and forth to pile the beets up high and wide.

Friends and family

Our daughter Caitlyn took time off work to come to North Dakota to harvest sugar beets with us. Since we had our dogs and Caity’s dog too, we worked different splits. Sherry and Caity worked the day shift 7 AM – 7 PM. I worked the night shift 7 PM – 7 AM.

As the ground crew, we had several jobs. First, we had to direct the semis onto the dump ramps. When they were done we directed them to pull forward enough to receive their tare. The tare is the soil from the field that falls off the beets on the conveyors. The sugar processors don’t want to pay for the soil, so the semis have to stop to receive their tare. The semis are weighed before and after dumping so they get credit for the weight of the beets.

When the tare is dumped from the conveyor system, not all of it falls into the semi-trailer. So after each truck as the ground crew, we had to shovel a small amount of dirt out of the way. If we didn’t do it each time, it would be run over by the next truck and be harder and harder to remove. Also, if there was any rain at all, the dirt turned to mud and became very slippery where we had to walk.

The Big Pile

The boom operator’s only job is to push 5 buttons on a remote. Left, right, up, down, and stop are the buttons on the remote. The remote controls the long boom that piles the beets up. It is important that the beet pile is not too high or too wide.

Under the pile, the skidsteer operator puts a corrugated pipe in place as the pile moves back. This pipe is connected to blowers at each side of the piles. The blower blows cold air into the piles to keep them from composting which would cause heat and spoil the beets. The beets must not be piled too wide or it will make it impossible to get to the pipes when the beets are ready to be taken for processing.

We also had to pick up loose beets that would fall out of the trucks or conveyors and put them back in the pile. These beets aren’t the ones that you think of on your table. They are about the size of a bowling ball and weigh 7-10 lbs.

Taking Samples

The hardest part of the job was taking samples. Every time the farmers would switch the fields they were harvesting from, the sugar processing factory would want some samples of the beets. They needed these samples so they could test the quality of the beets. The quality of the beets is very important because the weight and quality of the beets are how the factory determines how much to pay the farmer.

We had to take a large leather bag, put it on a chute, and press a button to get the samples. That activated a large arm with a bucket on the end. The Bucket grabbed 7-10 sugar beets off the conveyor and sent them down the chute into the bucket. As you can imagine, these bags were fairly heavy, and we had to do several every hour.

Looong Hours

The sugar beet harvest usually takes approximately 14-21 days, but because of weather shutdowns, it usually takes the entire month of October. If it is over 80 degrees, below 32 degrees, or too rainy the operation must be shut down. We were lucky, we only shut down early one night because it was too cold and one day because it was too hot. In fact, the 2020 season was the fastest harvest on record at only 13 days.

Overall, the work is pretty easy. The hardest part was the long hours. As long as the weather permits, the operation goes on 24/7. So we were required to work 12 hours a day, every day. However, since our harvest ever went so fast, we had no days off for a break like they do most seasons.

Here is a very good video about the sugar beet harvest.

Get A Job Harvesting Sugar Beets

If you would like more information on how you too can get a job harvesting sugar beets you can get more information at The Unbeetable Experience.

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