BILLINGS, Mont. - Sugar beet producers in Wyoming and southeastern Montana are reporting a bumper crop.

Members of the Western Sugar Cooperative on average pulled 27.4 tons of beets out of every acre planted and the beets had an estimated sugar content of 17 percent. Similar numbers were reported in the Lovell, Mont., area.

"Both areas are above average in tonnage and sugar," said Randall Jobman, the co-op's North Country agricultural manager. "It's a good time to be in the sugar beet business, and we got the beets out of the ground."

Beet harvests in some areas of Montana and Wyoming were delayed by a mid-October snowstorm that dropped up to 2 feet of snow in some places. However, the snow didn't damage the crops.

Beet growers in the Sidney, Mont., area and those in Wyoming growing for Wyoming Sugar Co. also reported record production.

"We had a tremendous crop," said Cal Jones, CEO of Wyoming Sugar. "We had records in yields, 26 tons per acre, and content, 17.5 percent."

In far eastern Montana, Montana-Dakota Beet Growers Association farmers harvested 24.6 tons per acre with an 18.1 percent sugar content, said Terry Cayko, association spokesman.

Growers were contracted for about 15,000 acres this year, raising concern that American Crystal Sugar wouldn't keep the Sidney refinery running in future years.

Cayko said more than 19,000 acres are under contract for 2009 and he expects that number to reach 21,000 or 22,000 acres.

This was the first year farmers planted beets genetically modified to resist the herbicide Roundup, which is more effective on weeds and allowed growers to spray their fields less often.

Farmers said without competition from weeds, the beet crop was healthier.

In Billings, the Western Sugar Cooperative refinery will operate seven days a week through the beginning of February, processing as many beets as possible before the piles of beets stacked outside spoil.