2014 ASHS Annual Conference

Harvested sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) roots are stored in Michigan in large piles and exposed to ambient weather conditions during winter storage period, which generally lasts three to four months.  During this time, the air temperature may range from as low as -23 °C to as high as 16 °C. Winter air temperatures are rising in association with long-term trends of increasing global temperatures. Higher air temperatures contribute to increasing respiration and storage decay due to increasing metabolic activities, and give decay organisms optimal conditions to increase their growth and aggressiveness.  Decay losses can result in losses of 206 g sugar/ ton beets/ day, which can amount to as much as $1 million dollars per week for the Michigan industry. Thus, it is important to understand the composition of the pile temperatures by developing a model to predict pile temperature based on the history of air temperature, pile age, and pile architecture. We designed a 2D model of the temperature profile of a non-ventilated pile as a function of air speed, direction, relative humidity, and temperature.