Down and Dirty: Giving Back The Tare Dirt

American Crystal Sugar Company
Hillsboro Processing Plant
Hillsboro, ND
GPS: 47.434612, -97.062921

Harvesting Sugar Beets brings along dirt

Sugar beets are a root crop. Just like carrots, turnips, radishes, and potatoes, the part you want is in the dirt – not on a tree or bush. So harvesting involves dirt. Mechanical harvesters dig the beets out of the ground and throw them into a truck at a pretty high speed so a lot of dirt goes along for the ride and into the piler. This dirt is called “Tare Dirt”. American Crystal Sugar does not want the dirt, has no place to keep it, and certainly does not want to pay for it. It is part of the truck weight coming into the yard and they want it to be part of the truck weight going out.

Pilers include large cleaning devices to carry out a secondary cleaning of the beets to remove all foreign materials that made it into the piler with the beets. Beets are bounced and rolled, being scrubbed clean as they move; dirt and other foreign materials are sucked through the rolls, collected into a hopper, and returned to the truck as the last step in the receiving process.

Piler cleans off some of the dirt ...

... and that dirt is returned to the truck
By this time loose dirt is gone and the beets are “pretty clean”, but they still carry some clinging tare dirt through the piler. The beets are subject to a deduction for that tare dirt. Tare determination, sugar percentage, and sugar loss to molasses are determined based on the sample at the quality laboratory in Grand Forks.

That’s the story on Tare Dirt.

Posts about the Sugar Beet Harvest

FIRST DAY IN NORTH DAKOTA
Hillsboro, North Dakota, we have arrived

GETTING READY FOR WORK
Some paperwork to get us started

ON THE JOB TRAINING
A trip to the Hillsboro factory for some OJT

TEN DAYS OF WORK
Notes and pictures on our ten days of work

THE CAMPAIGN
A quick summary of the annual campaign of sugar beet processing

THE SUGAR BEET
Bigger than a coconut, smaller than a football. Here is the story on the sugar beet

THE PILER
I was very impressed with the big machine we worked on. I thought you might like to learn more.

THE SUGAR BEET PILE
How big is a pile that contains 90,000 tons? Here are some pictures and figures

DOWN AND DIRTY: GIVING BACK THE TARE DIRT
Harvesting root crops produces dirt. How to handle and dispose of it is an interesting side story

A LOOK AT THE SUGAR INDUSTRY
A $20 billion industry with 142,000 jobs in 22 states. Take a look at the Sugar Beet Industry

AMERICAN CRYSTAL SUGAR COMPANY
Get a closer look at the company providing this workamping opportunity.

EXPRESS EMPLOYMENT PROFESSIONALS
If you are a workamper interested in short term hard work for big bucks, here’s the link