A204 on duty, last December, carrying sugar beets at the Ελληνική Βιομηχανία Ζάχαρης, Πλατύ photo: Stefanos Vardaris
some things about the Sugar beets (copied from the net
)The sugarbeet as we know it today is derived from many years of breeding the domesticated beet (Beta vulgaris L.). It is said to get its name from the Greek letter beta because the swollen, turnip-like root resembles a Greek B. However, the oldest known beet type, chard, was domesticated by at least 2000 B.C, and was grown by both the Greeks and Romans. Chard was originally used medicinally and for its dense foliage growth as a pot herb much like spinach or some of the Chinese leaf vegetables are used today.
The swollen, fleshy taproot familiar today was not known until the second and third century, A.D. Beetroot, both red and white, were developed in Italy (thus known as the “Roman beet”) by selection from the wild beets native to the seacoasts of the Mediterranean. It was also found throughout Europe and hybridized with leaf beet types (chard) to produce the vast range of color and shape found in table beets today. It was used as a vegetable and was boiled in stews, baked in tarts, and roasted whole. White beets appear to have been more common, but less desirable than the red.
As you can get, sugar beet cultivation is more than traditional down here. Although it suffers from the general problems that Greek Agriculture faces the last decades, farmers of Northern Greece still try to make their living through it.
but this is another story, to go back to what interests us more, a nice video from basilis1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__gf7mqCoF0
and two more you gonna like from Kgogis, Ludmilla in Greece with sugar beet trains and more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HREPfJU ... 4Imf69SS05
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EfvmGQ ... 4Imf69SS05
and if you wonder what happens before the train transportation, have a look at this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T9wAf5Eue0
to be continued... and of course not necessarily by me
