ÄDELHOLM 2023: STORAGE
The field was lifted 14 November, with an expected delivery date of 22 November. There was a lot of rain in the forecast for 15 November – ca. 40mm – which was to be followed by a small cold period of -2C for a few hours. The gut said cover the clamp. The rule-of-thumb guides said cover the clamp. The lazy bastard in me said don’t bother, and he won.
Actually, it was the calculator that said don’t bother. The estimated cost of covering the clamp was 10 kSEK. Given the timing of the delivery, there would be no reimbursement for this. It was estimated that cleanness would have to decrease by 10 percentage points for it to be worth the cost of covering. This assumed that the cold wouldn’t have any effect.
Well, the rain came (photos from 17 November):
Some beets managed to float away (photo from 19 November):
And the cold came; note the glassy appearance in the root at the top, and at the top of the root that is sliced open (under the dirt):
Should have gone with the gut/ rule of thumb…
This was particularly so after the factory was shut down owing to an explosion on 18 November. With the delivery pushed out to God knows when, the longer storage period making us eligible for frost-protection re-embursment, and a forecast for a period of long cold weather starting over the weekend 25-26 November, the clamp was covered with TopTex on 21 November.
And with Jupette on 24 November (no photos taken – hands were frozen).
FORECAST 2023-11-27
The cold weather forecast continues.
At least the beet is harvested. There are a lot of growers that simply didn’t manage to lift their beet in time. The cold weather forecast came in quite quickly, and with the high amounts of rain we’d had leading up to this period, the window to harvest just closed in on a lot of growers. They did everything right, but thing have gone against them. Anyway, we still don’t know if there will be any deliveries…
THE COLD CAME AND WENT, AND SO DID THE CROP
The timeline might get a little confusing here: there is a lot of back and forth.
It wasn’t until 8 December that the Jupette was removed. We definitely had some cold nights of minus 9 or 10. When the clamp was finally uncovered on 19 December, it was clear that there was frost damage at least two layers in. Fortunately the frost-damage-induced-degredation was not advanced, and the entire load could be delivered.
Prior to delivery and after 8 December, the Jupette was replaced on 12 December, and removed again on 16 December. The TopTex was removed for good on the morning of 19 December.
Delivery
When the factory restarted on 11 December, we had a delivery date straight away, for 18 December. By the 14th, this was changed to 20 December. For a brief moment on 17 December, the delivery date was 23 December. Fortunately, on the 18th, the planned delivery date was again 20 december.
The actual delivery date was 19 December. The final quality of the roots was a pol sugar of 17.62%, and one of the 14 loads had an “anmarkning” 5 for damage. The exact source of the note for damage is not known, but it is likely from the roots that sat outside of the clamp and were delivered. It was not the intent to deliver these roots: we didn’t scrape them away when we took the TopTex off as we didn’t have the equiment with us to do that. The intent then turned to be there for delivery, so that we could instruct the driver to leave these damaged roots out. It was also hoped to see how the rest of the roots faired, especially those that sat under water. But, but the time contact was made with the delivery contractor on the 19th (they returned a ca. 13:00 call at ca. 15:45 as they sat in a meeting), the clamp scheduled for delivery on the 20th had already been delivered. They took everything. This is their job and they did it well. But, as far as I know, none of the many chefs of Ädelholm answered a phone call from the delivery company to confirm the early delivery. An opportunity missed.
| Date | What happened | Delivery date | Cover status |
| 14 Nov | Harvest! Forecast for rain | 22 Nov | None |
| 15 | 22 | None | |
| 16 | ca. 50mm rain | 26 | None |
| 17 | 27 | None | |
| 18 | -3 Deg. Explosion at factory | 27 | None |
| 19 | 27 Nov | None | |
| 20 | 2 Dec | TopTex | |
| 21 | 2 Dec | TopTex | |
| 22 | -4 Deg min | 8 Dec | TopTex |
| 23 | TopTex | ||
| 24 | Jupette | ||
| 25 | -5 Deg min | Jupette | |
| 26 | -7 Deg min | Jupette | |
| 27 | -7 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 28 | -9 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 29 | -9 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 30 | -8 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 1 December | -11 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 2 | -10 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 3 | -5 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 4 | -3 Deg min | None | Jupette |
| 5 | None | Jupette | |
| 6 | None | Jupette | |
| 7 | None | Jupette | |
| 8 | None | TopTex | |
| 9 | None | TopTex | |
| 10 | None | TopTex | |
| 11 | Factory reopens | None | TopTex |
| 12 | 18 Dec | Jupette | |
| 13 | 18 Dec | Jupette | |
| 14 | 20 Dec | Jupette | |
| 15 | 20 Dec | Jupette | |
| 16 | 8 Deg max | 20 Dec | TopTex |
| 17 | 8 Deg max | 23 Dec | TopTex |
| 18 | 8 Deg max | 20 Dec | TopTex |
| 19 December | Delivery! 8 Deg max | 20 Dec | None |
| 20 | 19 Dec | None |