The verdict is still out on whether beet juice can help treat icy roads.

The state Department of Transportation crews in Butler County experimented this winter with adding sugar beet juice to its salt brine during times of extreme cold.

PennDOT wanted to see if the mix would allow salt to work at the lower temperatures because the normal salt brine loses most of its effectiveness below 20 degrees.

The sugar in the beet juice is supposed to allow salt to melt ice at temperatures as low as zero degrees.

Bob Skrak, the county maintenance manager for PennDOT, said the juice did that.

“We’re reporting a success,” he said. “It has been successful at lower temperatures.”

But while the juice has tested well, the question remains if the juice is practical.

Skrak said he isn’t sure about that.

The idea is to see if juice allows salt to work more effectively at lower temperatures. If that is the case, then less salt will be needed to treat icy roads at those times.

Vendors for the juice claim it can reduce the salt needed to de-ice roads by up to 30 percent.

Skrak estimated it to be more along the lines of 10 percent to 15 percent, but said he would like to have more time testing the product.

“I think a longer experiment is needed to judge the amount of salt needed,” Skrak said.

He said his crews had a limited amount of beet juice, roughly 3,000 gallons, to test with this winter.

His crews go through about 300,000 gallons of salt brine in the winter.

He added the weather was less than corporative when crews were able to test the mix.

“We only had a couple instances of ideal testing,” he said.

Skrak said sometimes the temperatures were not as cold as they would have liked.

When it was cold, heavy snow often cut the testing short or ruined it altogether.

Fearing the juice mix would not work as well as the traditional brine, Skrak said crews were forced to go back and cover the road with the traditional brine during particularly harsh conditions.

“We’re not going to experiment with public safety,” he said. “We’ll try new things but sometimes we had to go back to the old method.”

PennDOT crews mostly tested the juice mix along Route 422 at night. Skrak said even with the lower traffic, his crews were still concerned about testing the product.

Skrak said he would like to be able to test the product throughout an entire winter to get a better judgment on it.

“I’d welcome another test,” he said. “Only with more product and a longer period of testing.”

Skrak said his department, the only one testing the mixture in the state, has submitted what limited findings it has to the state.

He does not know when the state will make a decision on whether it will use the juice in the future.

“There’s no indication yet one way or the other,” he said.

If the state decides to continue using the juice, it could help with struggling salt reserves.

Skrak said his department has used around 25,000 tons of salt this winter.

“We’ve used at least equal to what we’ve used in bad winters in the past,” he said. “We’ve used a lot of salt.”

Skrak said his department typically uses up to 20,000 tons of salt.

“We’ve already expended our contract to 130 percent,” he said. “Hopefully winter is close to being over.”