Microbial contaminations of raw diffusion juice from the factory processing of sugarbeet

This study profiled bacterial communities (full length 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing) in raw diffusion juice samples from 21 sugar factories across the United States and Canada. Juice samples were collected at four time points during the processing campaign including (i) late September (freshly harvested roots, Period 1); (ii) 2nd week in December (stockpiles roots, Period 2); (iii) mid-February (aged, stockpiled roots, Period 3); and (iv) mid-April (frozen roots, Period 4) both 2021 and 2022 processing campaigns. The current study provides important baseline data to initiate mitigation strategies of bacterial contaminants in raw sugarbeet juice at different processing periods.