Grain Drying

[Case290]

Sounds an ok set up / good set up to me.
Buy a bigger bucket and bigger loader. And if it’s still to slow but a bigger bucket and bigger loading shovel. Nothing else you can do.

 

[Case290]

Big grain bin ? That won’t get rented out

 

[Overby]

Sounds an ok set up / good set up to me.
Buy a bigger bucket and bigger loader. And if it’s still to slow but a bigger bucket and bigger loading shovel. Nothing else you can do.

With a 1960s 6 tonne intake and absolutely no desire to buy a bigger loader to shift the corn I don't want there in the first place I forsee problems

 

[DanniAgro]

It's a lot more complicated unfortunately. Family member who refuses to accept we've split up a business and insists on trying to treat our farm as his place of work (laying claim to sheds etc) despite actually living on his own farm nearby and having sold off sheds he owned (don't question the lunacy...it just makes it worse) . I don't want to continue the current line at all but am trying to peacefully broker a solution, the other side arent't willing to accept change and refuse to compensate properly for what's currently happening. Tenanted farm so we could just say 'jog on', but trying to keep the peace. Pointing out the £ futility is one element of trying to carrot and stick a solution. Hence the research.

People have gone to law for less, and lost, so that's probably no solution, even if you were willing to go down that route.

 

[Overby]

People have gone to law for less, and lost, so your problem is obvious.

You mean regarding the tenancy? It's tenanted in our name only, which is the deal breaker if no solution works.

 

[melted welly]

We run a 3 x 30ish tonne/bay tray drier. Empty it with trailers in morning as combine gets ready, fill with wet and set going soon as each tray full. Can often get 2 or 3 fills through in a day if just needing a bit off or a cool before storing.
No moving parts.
Once drier full I’ve a 150t temporary bay right next to it to fill with wet and I can refill with loader in 15mins. Grain stores are between 50yds and 1/4mile from drier so we empty with trailers.
Very low maintenance and we can dry 3 different crops at the same time. trailer drivers level it as they tip their loads and I’ll set going once full.
Works well for us but dad still loves to try and get things tipped in inappropriate places like the workshop and on some rough old tar which is all part of the working with family game I suppose. Nothing better than pootling about the yard, getting in the way, not weighing loads, spilling stuff and making a mess.
The attraction of getting crop away at harvest is strong, but personally, we have the storage infrastructure so buying central storage would be expensive and currently we’re in total control of our output not dependent on haulage.
Tray system could work alongside existing drier maybe? Take a bit of pressure off maybe

 

[KennyO]

From bitter experience central storage can cost you a lot of money. Extra haulage and weight loss, expensive buy in and difficult or impossible to get your money out.
Some better run stores might have a demand if you want to sell you tonage but more than likely they will be trying to sell new build tonnage.

 

[DrWazzock]

Dad always used to ring the grain merchant for a price. The merchant would tell him a price and ask him how much he’d got. Dad would always say “No idea”. He certainly worked in mysterious ways here before I fitted a pressure gauge on the tipping pipe to get some idea of what we’d got.

 

[DrWazzock]

Sad fact is with 1970’s prices for grain then for us the only profitable option is to keep flogging 1960’s equipment. It’s a pain, but I set the deck chair up in a central location and fire it up. Three weeks bucketing it into the pit and storing it away. Started doing the grain handling when I was 15. 36 years later still doing it and with all the same equipment. But at least I know it like the back of my hand.
Every year before crawling down conveyor tunnels to hoover them out we go through the same process of considering how we could make it easier but always seem to end up using the same old kit for just one more year. Then once the seasons over we forget all about it and haven’t parted with a wodge of cash. Maybe that’s the art of survival in farming. Just keep muddling through.

 

[KennyO]

I would suggest mobile drier plus wet intake hopper. Set it up in the most suitable location. Near a wet shed and emptying into a dry shed or trailer for more distant stores.

Can be sold easily if needed.

Or just sell at harvest or into a local commercial store if there is one.

Other family member seems to be taking the p. This needs sorted.

 

[DrWazzock]

Will it store safely in non blown shed straight out of a mobile opico type drier? Just asking as i have a large multipurpose shed at my disposal should my old system breakdown big time or fail unsiection. Or would grain out of an opico need further conditioning from say pedestals?

 

[DrWazzock]

I had wondered about big plain shed, opico and pedestals being a cheaper simpler alternative than my present antiquated set up.

 

[Overby]

I would suggest mobile drier plus wet intake hopper. Set it up in the most suitable location. Near a wet shed and emptying into a dry shed or trailer for more distant stores.

Can be sold easily if needed.

Or just sell at harvest or into a local commercial store if there is one.

Other family member seems to be taking the p. This needs sorted.

You are bang on the money

 

[DrWazzock]

It's a lot more complicated unfortunately. Family member who refuses to accept we've split up a business and insists on trying to treat our farm as his place of work (laying claim to sheds etc) despite actually living on his own farm nearby and having sold off sheds he owned (don't question the lunacy...it just makes it worse) . I don't want to continue the current line at all but am trying to peacefully broker a solution, the other side arent't willing to accept change and refuse to compensate properly for what's currently happening. Tenanted farm so we could just say 'jog on', but trying to keep the peace. Pointing out the £ futility is one element of trying to carrot and stick a solution. Hence the research.

Can’t quite understand this. If the business is truly split then send them a realistic bill for the drying. I don’t mind spending my own time drying my own grain with temperamental equipment but I drew the line at doing the neighbours as well. A big bill sent them elsewhere and I wasn’t sorry as I had other things to be getting on with like autumn drilling.

 

[DrWazzock]

All electrically driven mobile drier so you aren’t flogging a tractor and tying it up?

 

[Overby]

Can’t quite understand this. If the business is truly split then send them a realistic bill for the drying. I don’t mind spending my own time drying my own grain with temperamental equipment but I drew the line at doing the neighbours as well. A big bill sent them elsewhere and I wasn’t sorry as I had other things to be getting on with like autumn drilling.

Any other walk of life, easily and sensibly dealt with. This is family farming though......

 

[chaffcutter]

An Opico or similar is difficult to beat for smaller tonnages, accurate drying and every grain dried to the same m/c. (Which some driers don’t do). You can only cool to ambient with any drier so a ew pedestal and fans will do the trick, all resaleable and not expensive, lots available secondhand. Used to run two. Won’t need any more cooling unless for longer term storage.

Got some spare pedestals, how many do you want?

 

[DrWazzock]

I dry and cool 18 tons per day through my 3t per hour continuous flow, loading up two 9 ton radial cooling bins to blow during the evening and early morning to cool down.
my gut feeling is you would need a very big bar steward mobile batch drier to achieve what a continuous flow drier and radial cooling bins can achieve. I’d need an 18 ton mobile batch drier as I can’t empty it until it’s been cooled with lower overnight

 

[ajd132]

Just send it to a commercial store, or if the tenancy is long term buy into a good central store (if there is a decent one in your area, they vary a lot). Rent sheds out. Do all the loading at harvest. Sit back and don’t worry.
Whatever you do it is going to cost money one way or the other but your situation sounds miserable with that antiquated set up. Where are you based?

 

[PSQ]

I would suggest mobile drier plus wet intake hopper. Set it up in the most suitable location. Near a wet shed and emptying into a dry shed or trailer for more distant stores.

Other family member seems to be taking the p. This needs sorted.

A mobile drier is a good option compared a fixed continuous flow. It would ideally need full automation to load and unload, but would make replacement or relocation so much easier.

Is this 'family member' paying a fair commercial rate for his grain drying, or is he expecting you to do it as a favour?
If it's the latter, then it's no wonder theres been no money left in the kitty for improvements. He needs to pay commercial rates (NOT 'mates rates') or sling his hook, as his current actions are best described as 'parasitic' on your own farm.
If he is paying a fair rate and the money is being skimmed off as profit, that needs addressing too.