Expert advises farmers to treat stored grain like it’s an investment
On-farm storage can help farmers make the most of their grain-marketing opportunities. It also puts increasing pressure on farmers to manage their grain properly to avoid losing money from poor quality. As in other areas of farming, technology is giving farmers more options for keeping their grain in top condition – and potentially even profit from better market conditions later.
Klein Ileleji is associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In addition to work in biomass feedstock logistics and processing, Ileleji is an extension grain handling expert. In this Q&A, he discusses the importance of technology in managing stored soybeans.
Q: How important is it that stored grain is managed properly?
A: First of all, stored grain is an investment that has monetary value.
Grain in a bin is like cash in the bank. Good financial managers watch for the external forces in the financial markets that affect investments. Good stored grain managers should watch for the externalities such as the weather, insect pests, grain moisture and temperature that can affect the quality and value of stored grain.
I tell farmers and grain facility operators to imagine if it was actual cash in the bins, rather than grain. How would they manage it?
Would they check daily to see if their cash is still there? Similarly, would they check if their grain is going out of condition?
Would they monitor continuously to see that there is no growth in insect activity over time or other detrimental biological activity like they would check how the market affects their cash investment?
Managing stored grain is about managing an investment.
Second, loss of quality in storage can lead to contamination by toxins, such as aflatoxin, which are produced by storage fungi. Consuming contaminated grain poses a health risk to both humans and livestock. This is also a driver and a quality measure for which grain is checked.
Q: How has grain-bin management changed in recent years?
A: On-farm storage bins are larger as are bins in feed and flour mills. The risks of poor management are higher given the larger investment of stocks held in a single bin.
There are more options for sensor types to managing stored grain. Some of these systems have off-site monitoring, data logging and alert capabilities, so stored grain managers have more tools.
There are still old practices in place on farms, such as sniffing around the bin for the smell of spoilage. These practices don't work as well as monitoring because by the time you smell deterioration, it might be too late.
Q: What role does technology play in grain management?
A: Adequately managing bins with 50,000, 100,000 or more bushel capacity requires not only good management skills, but also tools like sensors and data logging to monitor the condition of grain in the bins.
The average on-farm grain bin size has increased. It is not uncommon to see some farms having 500,000-bushel-capacity bins, which is what a grain elevator would have.
Less than 30 percent of U.S. farms have temperature cables installed, which is one of the commonly used tools to monitor temperature of stored grain. There is opportunity for training and awareness as to how these tools work and should be used.
The financial value of the commodity you store should provide a good indicator about the value of grain-bin technology investments. Information needs to drive decisions on stored grain management. That can only happen when stored grain is monitored and information is obtained to enable informed decision-making.
Q: What are most systems designed to do?
A: The most common monitoring system is the temperature cable, designed to monitor the temperature of the stored grain. That provides information about the growth potential for biological activity like insects and molds.
Many systems come with either automatic or manual logging. I prefer automatic logging systems because diagnosing problems is best done if you can view the history of the grain condition rather than one data point logged at a given time. With manual logging, it is important that meticulous data recording is practiced so that informed decisions can be made based on the historical data.
Temperature monitoring can also be used to watch the movement of the drying front in in-bin drying systems and the movement of the cooling front in in-bin cooling systems.
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