In the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota, sugar beet typically is grown following spring wheat in the rotation. However, corn production has increased in this region during recent years. Concerns have been raised that university N recommendations for sugar beet production are not adequate when sugar beet follows corn in the rotation. Field experiments were initiated to examine sugar beet response to N fertilizer response when grown after corn and to determine the affects of the corn residue itself on this response. Corn was grown and harvested in the year preceding sugar beet. Immediately after corn harvest whole plot treatments were established by either removing above ground residue or leaving it on the soil. The following spring, six N fertilizer rates were applied to subplots and sugar beet was planted. Sugar beet root yield was greater where corn residue was removed at all N rates. But, the N rate providing maximum sugar beet root yield was not different between the residue treatments and was similar to university recommendations in two of three years. In the third year, increasing N rates improved sugar beet root yield when corn residue was present, but maximum root yield would have required an N rate twice the university recommendations. The data indicate that N rates exceeding university recommendations by more than 33 kg ha-1 did not improve sugar beet root yield and tended to decrease root sucrose concentration. This experiment did not provide evidence that university N recommendations should be increased for sugar beet production following corn.