American Crystal Sugar Company
Hillsboro Processing Plant
Hillsboro, ND
GPS: 47.434612, -97.062921
Sugar is the most widely used sweetener in the world, with its closest substitute being high-fructose corn syrup. Other caloric sweeteners are not significant in the global sweeteners market, but their shares are rising due to increasing cases of obesity, diabetes, and growing health concerns among people.
The global market for sweeteners totaled about $76 billion in 2012 and is projected to reach nearly $97 billion by 2017. In this market, sugar holds the majority share, about 85%. The global volume of sugar consumption is rising by about 4% per year, but the market value is dictated by sugar prices, which are extremely volatile.
Sugar Beets require fertile soil and a temperate climate while sugar cane grows in a tropical climate. Production areas for sugar beets in the US are in fertile river valleys in the north. The Red River Valley supports the crop in North Dakota and Minnesota while the production in Montana and northern Wyoming comes from the Yellowstone River Valley. The North Platte River Valley is a growing area in southeast Wyoming, western Nebraska, and northeast Colorado. Growing sugar beets is done in Idaho along the Snake River Valley, and in Oregon in the Willamette River Valley.
The American sugar industry has a significant impact on the nation’s economy. The industry creates 142,000 direct and indirect jobs in 22 states and contributes $20 billion in positive economic activity each year.
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
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
American Crystal Sugar Company
Hillsboro Processing Plant
Hillsboro, ND
GPS: 47.434612, -97.062921
That phrase used derisively to describe a PhD surely fits a sugar beet pile. A piler is able to make piles of sugar beets over 200 feet wide at the base, and over 20 feet high, containing between 70,000 and 90,000 tons of beets. There is no angle from which I could take a picture that would capture the size of these beet piles. Maybe this diagram along with some pictures will do the job.
Compare the pile to the piler and the trucks
Looks like gravel but every particle is a sugar beet the size of a coconut
The pile grows 24/7 and the top of the boom is 30 ft above the ground
When we started, I could see the factory buildings under the stacks
Sugar beets are harvested quickly and stored up to 180 days to await processing. It is during this storage period, that sugar is lost through normal respiration. Respiration causes about 70% of sugar loss during storage, and decay accounts for 10%. The remaining 20% is the result of fermentation when the oxygen content is low because of poor ventilation, freezing and thawing cycles, and root desiccation. Storage losses caused by respiration have been controlled through the utilization of forced-air ventilation and subsequent freezing of storage piles after mid-December.
“forced-air ventilation and subsequent freezing” brings up an important part of the beet pile story and our work, but first an important side story. (I love these little adventures off into the encyclopedia to learn something new)
The Skidsteer
Darting around the Piler, like pilot fish around a shark, is a Skidsteer. The Piler could not function properly without the Skidsteer.
This Cat Skidsteer is the same as the one at our piler
Time for the information from Wikipedia
A skid loader, skid-steer loader, or skidsteer, is a small, rigid-frame, engine-powered machine with lift arms used to attach a wide variety of labor-saving tools or attachments. Many manufacturers have their own versions of this vehicle, including Kubota, Bobcat, Terex, Case, Caterpillar, Gehl Company, Hyundai, JCB, JLG, John Deere, Komatsu, LiuGong, New Holland, Volvo, and Wacker Neuson.
Skid-steer loaders are typically four-wheel vehicles with the wheels mechanically locked in synchronization on each side so the left-side drive wheels can be driven independently of the right-side drive wheels. The wheels typically have no separate steering mechanism and hold a fixed straight alignment on the body of the machine. By operating the left and right wheel pairs at different speeds, the machine turns by skidding or dragging its fixed-orientation wheels across the ground. The extremely rigid frame and strong wheel bearings prevent the torsional forces caused by this dragging motion from damaging the machine. The skid-steering vehicle is turned by generating differential velocity at the opposite sides of the vehicle. Skid-steer loaders are capable of zero-radius, "pirouette" turning, which makes them extremely maneuverable and valuable for applications that require a compact, agile loader. Skid-steer loaders are sometimes equipped with tracks in lieu of the wheels and such a vehicle is known as a multi-terrain loader.
Unlike in a conventional front loader, the lift arms in these machines are alongside the driver with the pivot points behind the driver's shoulders. Modern skid loaders have fully enclosed cabs and other features to protect the operator. Like other front loaders, it can push material from one location to another, carry material in its bucket or load material into a truck or trailer.Wikipedia
“it can push material from one location to another, carry material in its bucket or load material into a truck or trailer” and that is what it does around a piler 24 hours a day.
The Skidsteer cleans up trash around the piler. From beets spilled from the hopper because the driver dumped too fast to debris from the tare dirt dump, there is an endless stream of trash accumulating around the piler. Especially behind the piler and ahead of the pile. If this debris is not removed frequently, it will be buried in the pile.
Beets spilled by the trucks as they dump are run over by the trucks that follow, quickly covering the concrete pad with a covering of mashed beets that becomes slippery and dangerous for both trucks and workers.
The most important job for the skidsteer, and the job requiring the most skill, is laying down the culvert piping for the forced-air ventilation system.
The Skidsteer uses this gadget to pick up pipe
The Skidsteer lays the pipe sections end to end in from each side of the pile but not completely across
The Skidsteer piles beets in front of the pipe to prevent rolling or sliding
As the pile advances, it fills in behind the culvert and buries it
The ends of the culvert pipe are connected to ventilating fans
As soon as the weather turns cold, the ventilating fans are turned on to chill then freeze the core of the pile.
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
American Crystal Sugar Company
Hillsboro Processing Plant
Hillsboro, ND
GPS: 47.434612, -97.062921

Like an Octopus with tentacles everywhere, this behemoth scared the snap out of me when I first saw it. Pictures and videos did not do it justice. I had no idea what I was going to do to it or what it was going to do to me.
The dictionary says a Piler is “one that piles or heaps up; especially: one whose work is piling materials or products for storage, transportation, or processing”. Our Piler is not a person, but a huge piece of machinery used to receive truckload quantities of sugar beets delivered from the growers and pile these beets for future processing. Kringstad Ironworks manufactures these for American Crystal Sugar Company.

At the Hillsboro receiving station where we worked, there are six pilers.

In just a few minutes, a piler can digest a large truckload of beets. At a rate of about 250 tons an hour, this big guy can pile 5,000 to 6,000 tons of beets per day.

Part of the piler is a large cleaning device to carry out a secondary cleaning of the beets since the harvester has not cleaned all foreign materials from the beets in the field. The cleaning screen, known as the grab roll screen, is comprised of a slanting row of scrolled and smooth rolls. These rolls, perpendicular to the travel direction of the beets, turn at different speeds; scrolled rolls turn faster than smooth rolls. Beets are bounced and rolled through a water spray, being scrubbed clean as a result. Dirt and other foreign materials (known as Tare Dirt) fall through the rolls, are collected in a hopper, and returned to the delivery truck as the last step in the process.

The piler includes a mechanism for extracting buckets of samples from the stream of sugar beets and dropping them down a chute where we bagged them.

These samples are transported to the company laboratory in Grand Forks, ND and analyzed for sugar content. The result of this analysis becomes the basis for payment to the farmer.

Despite its size, this thing is actually a movable electric appliance. A power cord approximately 200 feet long supplies electricity at 440 volts. The operator moves the piler back as the pile builds up – typically a couple feet once every hour or so.

The crew for a piler is six (or seven) people:
** Operator
** Ass't Operator (operates the boom)
** Four Helpers (two on each side -- process trucks, collect samples, clean up)
** Skidsteer operator (usually shared by more than one piler)
This short (1:57) video was produced by Kringstad Ironworks, the piler manufacturer. It shows the piler throwing the beets to the pile, the beet truck dumping the beets into the piler, the cleaning process, the piler being moved, and finally the tare dirt being returned to the truck.
KII Sugar Beet Piler In Action
Now you know a little bit about Sugar Beet Pilers.
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
