Field Trialling Sugar Beet in Eastern Scotland

There is an urgent need to find scalable and sustainable biobased feedstocks to replace fossil fuels for manufacturing chemicals and bioplastic products. A previous study, “A Just Transition for the Chemicals Sector and a Net Zero Solution for Manufacturing” (2021), revealed that it would be possible to grow domestic sugar beet to displace a percentage of fossil fuel-based manufacturing in Scotland. Given the range of crops that can be grown in the Scottish climate, and ease of sugar extraction, sugar beet is one of the best sources of biomass for manufacturing chemicals and bioplastics in Scotland. 

In 2024, four farm sites on the eastern side of Scotland were chosen to trial sugar beet: near Brechin in Angus and St Andrews in Fife, situated in the preferred sugar beet growing area, and two outliers - Ellon in Aberdeenshire at a more northerly latitude, and Selkirk in the Scottish Borders. Two sugar beet varieties were sown at each location with harvest assessments undertaken in October, December, and February, to track yield and sugar content over a harvest season. 

Results confirmed that sugar beet continued to grow from October to December on all sites, before plateauing or decreasing slightly from December to February on three of the sites. Highest yielding was the Fife site peaking at an excellent average of 87 tonnes per hectare in February, with the Angus site peaked at 66 tonnes per hectare in December. A cool wet spring delayed sowing until early June, which is exceptionally late, on the Aberdeenshire and Borders sites with peak yields averaging just over 50 tonnes per hectare. The Borders site contained a significant percentage of fodder beet and is not representative of sugar beet performance. Sugar content was around 16.5% or higher in Aberdeenshire, Angus, and Fife, which is similar to average English beet results for the season. 

Evidence from previous farm weighed trials and average farm yields suggests that yields of 60 to 65 tonnes per hectare can regularly be obtained in the preferred beet area, in Angus and Fife, on prime arable land with class 1,2 and 3.1 soils. Perth and Kinross, Lothians and Borders with similar soils and climate are also suitable for sugar beet production. 

Sugar beet can be in the ground for up to ten months from late April/May to February and has proved to be a resilient crop, withstanding periods of drought, excessive rainfall, and frost (provided there is adequate leaf cover). The bigger question for Scotland is scaling up production and whether we have enough harvestable days to be able to lift crop without risking soil structural damage in challenging conditions. This would not have been a problem in the mild, dry winter of 2024-25, but the excessively wet October to December of 2023 would have been problematic. 

The previous Viability Study envisaged a plant processing beet from around 15,000 hectares of land feeding a centralised processing plant. This is unlikely to work at this scale, as this requires almost 50% of the available prime land in a one in six crop rotation within 50 miles of the site and could be difficult to harvest in a problematic winter. A smaller scale enterprise of 5,000 hectares, or a series of distributed hubs, supplying concentrated sugar syrup for higher value manufacturing market would make best use of the available land. This scale of operation has yet to be costed and assessed for viability. 

Access the full report: Advancing a Sustainable Scottish Supply for Sugar Beet - Field Trialling Sugar Beet in Eastern Scotland.