Madison, the top yielding sugar beet variety from Danish plant breeder Danisco Seed, is proving a winner on the North Yorkshire farm of Nick Rivis and his father Chris.

Last year, the first that Nick grew Madison, it topped the farm's average of 56.5 tonnes/hectare at 59 tonnes/hectare. Sugar content was 18.8 per cent - highly respectable on a coastal chalky clay loam lying a few miles from the cold North Sea.

Howe Farm, Hunmanby, Filey, runs to 1,200 acres. Main cropping is spring wheat, winter wheat, winter barley with sugar beet and oilseed rape as breaks. The spring wheat follows the sugar beet. This year Nick has 116 acres of oilseed rape and 186 acres of sugar beet, made up of four varieties, including Madison.

"Last year we had one field, the first 54 acres we drilled, which was split between Madison and Jackpot. We did the headlands and the bulk of the field with Madison and finished out with about 15 acres of Jackpot. "Curiously the Jackpot always looked the better crop, but when we came to harvest the Madison definitely produced the better root and sugar yield," he declared.

Management of the beet crop starts when the previous barley crop is cut. Normally the barley straw is baled and stacked, some for home use with the 200 or so bullocks they fatten or the commercial flock of 65 accredited Texel sheep, the rest is sold. The beet crop is usually drilled from late March to early April. British Sugar carries out a soil test in October. The crop is drilled and harvested by contractors.

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