The love-hate relationship builds. The things I’m loving about OpenFOAM so far include: the price, the way it makes you understand what everything (every step, every parameter, every decision) is and means – the learning is much deeper, the way it make you understand that you’re asking the computer to do a lot of computations!…
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Drying out sugar beets isn’t usually a practice undertaken in their production – at least, not intentionally – and we’re not looking to change this – intentionally. The topic has come up after it became clear in one of my other projects that ventilation isn’t just good for cooling beets, it has the ability to…
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COBRI is the COordination Beet Research International. How International? There are four institutes, representing five sugar beet growing nations: IRS from the Netherlands, IRBAB from Belgium, IfZ from Germany, and, of course, NBR from Sweden and Denmark. These institutes work together through the collaboration on projects that have agro-ecological/ management/ policy/ etc relevance in the…
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Yes, I do amuse myself… But seriously, this has been a fun set of experiments. Damage to sugar beets during harvest and transport can be very costly in terms of sugar loss during storage. This general idea is something that seems to be pretty well understood. The depth of knowledge on the different conditions that…
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If there is one thing that I hope to know more about than anyone else in the world at the end of my PhD, it is how air moves through sugar beet clamps, and how this air movement impacts the quality of the beets over time. To this end, one of the major research trials…
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In May this year (2019), the IIRB Beet Quality and Storage study group had their latest meeting. The first speaker was from KWS in Germany – Elka Hilscher – and talked about the distribution of the good and the bad within sugar beets. I’ve written a summary of this work for Betordlaren (coming soon). If…
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(Not the actual title…) This is an English version of my 3rd contribution to Betorlaren (2018 #4), the Swedish sugar beet industry’s magazine. This was an early draft: the final Swedish version looks and reads better, thanks to the four helpful editors that fixed it up before it even went to the publishers. In…
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In Brief (originally written for the NBR Facebook page): Stage 2 of NBRs main storage trail for 2018 was texture and quality at harvest analysis. Conducted at the labs of our German COBRI collaboration partner, Ifz, texture analysis involved subjecting beets to surface penetration tests and compression tests. Penetration tests involve a 2mm needle being…
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Originally written for the NBR Facebook page: There have been few benefits from the lack of rain in 2018 and NBRs research has not been immune to the challenges the year has thrown up. But one of our research trials may actually benefit from the dry. The trial is part of the harvest and storage series,…
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Rhizo- relating to a root or roots. This is the diary of the first seeds in my first home made rhizobox. July 14 2018. Sugar beets, sown at approx kl15. 10 seeds sown at approximately 2cm depth, near or against the Plexiglass. I’ve set up the box to lean forward at 15-20 degrees. Given anyone…
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