Why aren,t grain bins used more in the UK

[Roy_H]

Exactly the same reasons that bins / silos are so popular here - except for the snow loading that is

Sheds or bunkers are ok for short term bulk storage, but are crap at long term quality, hygiene & segregation

It's amusing that most who are critical of bins & augers seem to think that innovation & development ended with flat floors, shovels & 4" augers

Our bins went up in the 1960's but they had 6" augers even then.
I remember one lorry driver telling me that he went to one farm that had a similar situation to ours, ( 4 x 60 ton bins, a 6" drag auger and 6" elevator auger but with a sweep auger that wasn't worth tuppence ) One day he went for 3 20 ton loads but when he got to the farm there only appeared to be one chap there, well in his 70s .It turned out everyone else was busy in the fields. So loads 1 and 2 were ok, but when he came back for the last one the all to familiar sound of the clattering augers meant he had to go in with the shovel. Just as he climbed he was totally surprised to see grandpa with 'An enormous shovel and no face mask' who had come in to help. After they had emptied the bin he said " I was sweating like a pig, totally knackered out and gasping whereas this old lad having switched off the augers, calmly took off his cap, bashed it against the wall to knock the dust off it, lit his pipe and then taking a couple of puffs said : "D'you know lad, l right enjoyed that!"

 

[Roy_H]

Worked for Velcourt in Kent when I was younger and the grainstore had 2x1000t bins and 2x750t bins. Loading grain out was a dream with a big auger and a fyson elevator over a weigh bridge. Good times. Getting the grain in the bloody things was a different matter, 6t/hour mobile continuous flow dryer and a kongskilde sucker blower up to the top, I must have climbed the equivalent of Everest going up and down those bloody bins with duct tape and various bends for the blower pipes

Grain blowers! Awful things I feel your pain. When ours was fitted to our Boythorpe moist barley tower we were reliably informed that it would "Take anything that we could throw at it". Utter balls, it couldn't keep up with one 8' 6" Claas Matador let alone the both of them that we had at the time. and like you said l think every bend had to be patched regularly ( Until it fell apart altogether and we had to have a completely new pipe fitted ) and it blocked constantly.

 

[Farmer Roy]

I remember when we got our first forklift in the 1970s ( i.e. something that could lift high enough to fill a grain lorry as opposed to using an auger) We virtually abandoned our grain bins overnight. So much easier!

Nothing is easier than an electric 13" auger underneath an elevated cone / hopper silo
Will fill quicker than the trucks air gauges / weigh cells can keep up with
No shovelling or sweeping, no sweep augers, easy to wash out or keep sealed for fumigation
No rodents

 

[Roy_H]

Nothing is easier than an electric 13" auger underneath an elevated cone / hopper silo
Will fill quicker than the trucks air gauges / weigh cells can keep up with
No shovelling or sweeping, no sweep augers, easy to wash out or keep sealed for fumigation
No rodents

View attachment 826978

No doubt! I meant a forklift loading lorries in a shed was so much easier than our old 1960s vintage flat bottomed bins with 6" augers and a sweep auger that ended up been hung up in the rafters of a shed cos it was n. b.g. On the other hand WHEN those bins were erected they were considered 'state of the art'. Oh wow no more handling corn in hessian sacks from a Claas SF or Super 500 trailed combine!

 

[Blaithin]

Slow grain movement

Is anyone else struggling like crazy to get lorries this year? Despite 1500t of wheat cut and sold for harvest movement we have had 1 lorry move 29t of grain...might get a couple tomorrow otherwise its middle if next week. Still have harvest movement osr in the shed which they cant move...

thefarmingforum.co.uk

Seems like bins and bags wouldn’t go too amiss for some.

 

[Chae1]

Nothing is easier than an electric 13" auger underneath an elevated cone / hopper silo
Will fill quicker than the trucks air gauges / weigh cells can keep up with
No shovelling or sweeping, no sweep augers, easy to wash out or keep sealed for fumigation
No rodents

View attachment 826978

Just remember to take lid off when emptying them!

I once forgot and it imploded.

 

[Woldgrain Storage]

Our 58 silos give us much more capacity, many more segregations and more ability to blend than sheds ever could.

 

[Farmer-George]

Our 58 silos give us much more capacity, many more segregations and more ability to blend than sheds ever could.

Can’t put machinery in them though, can’t be used for anything else either. Ideal for what your handling but not versatile enough for a farm environment.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Can’t put machinery in them though, can’t be used for anything else either. Ideal for what your handling but not versatile enough for a farm environment.

As @Blaithin said earlier, if you are storing grain long term, say for a year or more ( quite common here also ) then you can't use that shed for equipment anyway . . .
And a shed is far more likely to have hygiene / rodent / insect issues than a silo is

 

[Blaithin]

To be fair, a lot of equipment here is too big to bother with housing in sheds. Even if farmers had empty sheds after they hauled grain, they wouldn’t have much equipment in there.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Cant store caravans in bins.

Mind you bins can be turned into trendy little houses, with a lick of paint and some mods.... i bet george clark or kevin macloud would be interested.

 

[Blaithin]

Got a new one going up in the back yard this week. The three bins at the far end are full of 3 yr old wheat and prices are low so instead of giving it away they’re putting up another bin for this years harvest (which looks like it’ll be large)

Coincidentally the wheat in the bins graded a 3 the year it was harvested but the standards changed last year so now it’s a 2. The new elevator opening this fall could also be buying more based on Falling Number while none of the other local elevators really do. And as luck would have it, it’s got a decent FN.

 

[Cowcorn]

Got a new one going up in the back yard this week. The three bins at the far end are full of 3 yr old wheat and prices are low so instead of giving it away they’re putting up another bin for this years harvest (which looks like it’ll be large)

View attachment 827552

Coincidentally the wheat in the bins graded a 3 the year it was harvested but the standards changed last year so now it’s a 2. The new elevator opening this fall could also be buying more based on Falling Number while none of the other local elevators really do. And as luck would have it, it’s got a decent FN.

Must be real money to be made at grain in canada blaithin , over here the grain has to be SOLD to pay the input bill rents finance etc . Either that or Canadian farmers have very understanding bank managers !!!!

 

[Hampton]

I remember when we got our first forklift in the 1970s ( i.e. something that could lift high enough to fill a grain lorry as opposed to using an auger) We virtually abandoned our grain bins overnight. So much easier!

Correct, Telehandlers were probably the biggest killer of grain bins. Elsewhere in the world they don’t really have them so they are still on augers etc

 

[ollie989898]

Nothing is easier than an electric 13" auger underneath an elevated cone / hopper silo
Will fill quicker than the trucks air gauges / weigh cells can keep up with
No shovelling or sweeping, no sweep augers, easy to wash out or keep sealed for fumigation
No rodents

View attachment 826978

At least those self clean and self empty!!!

 

[Blaithin]

Must be real money to be made at grain in canada blaithin , over here the grain has to be SOLD to pay the input bill rents finance etc . Either that or Canadian farmers have very understanding bank managers !!!!

Or Canadian farmers are better business men...

Sounds like poor business to have such high bills and payments that you have to sell all your grain every year. One poor year and you’d be hooped.... There’d be no farmers here at all!

They all have there different methods. Some contract gradually, some prefer to defer to the next year for taxes, some contract for times they know they’ll have bigger bills like fertilizer, seed or fuel. Some wait for good spot prices.

You don’t make good money if you sell it all off combine when prices tend to be low during/right after harvest. Unless you contract way far ahead in which case you hope you get the quantity and quality you contracted for.

From what I’ve noticed - albeit I don’t pay lots of attention - UK producers tend to get paid more for all the grains. ATM here wheat is about $5.60/bushel so just over $200/tonne. Canola has been under $10/bushel so barely $400 a tonne. UK prices seem to be those numbers with a £ in front. And keep in mind most farmers here will be farming close to twice the land to get the yields the UK gets.

 

[Blaithin]

Correct, Telehandlers were probably the biggest killer of grain bins. Elsewhere in the world they don’t really have them so they are still on augers etc

There’s lots of telehandlers here....

 

[Farmer Roy]

Or Canadian farmers are better business men...

Sounds like poor business to have such high bills and payments that you have to sell all your grain every year. One poor year and you’d be hooped.... There’d be no farmers here at all!

They all have there different methods. Some contract gradually, some prefer to defer to the next year for taxes, some contract for times they know they’ll have bigger bills like fertilizer, seed or fuel. Some wait for good spot prices.

You don’t make good money if you sell it all off combine when prices tend to be low during/right after harvest. Unless you contract way far ahead in which case you hope you get the quantity and quality you contracted for.

From what I’ve noticed - albeit I don’t pay lots of attention - UK producers tend to get paid more for all the grains. ATM here wheat is about $5.60/bushel so just over $200/tonne. Canola has been under $10/bushel so barely $400 a tonne. UK prices seem to be those numbers with a £ in front.

Thank you for replying
Almost exactly the same answer I was going to give
Many different methods / timings of marketing grain.

Admittedly we have 2 distinct Cropping seasons a year, roughly 6 months apart, but it is not uncommon here for people to arrange their grain marketing so they are selling grain every month to even out cashflow, rather than selling it all at harvest in one big hit, when traditionally prices are at their lowest.
As you said, some defer to the next tax year.
Some balance sales with known periods of expense.
If prices are low, some will hold on for higher spot prices
Some will forward sell a third. Sell a third at harvest & hold on to the remaining third for a few months after harvest when prices may be historically higher.
It all depends on the individual businesses requirements, financial position & cashflow.
There is no "one size fits all" rule that everyone follows

I'm not sure if it's because their industry is mostly domestically focused, rather than export like ours, but I have noticed that the UK grains industry does seem somewhat "naive" in comparison to the big exporters & producers such as Canada, USA & Australia
Many comments on TFF just leave me shaking my head, thinking WTF ?

 

[Blaithin]

I’ll admit the telehander comment made me chuckle.

I’ve loaded so much grain with a front end loader as to make telehandlers look dinky. So even if, for some randomly odd reason, there weren’t telehandlers in Canada, there are other pieces of equipment that can do that job.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Cant store caravans in bins.

Mind you bins can be turned into trendy little houses, with a lick of paint and some mods.... i bet george clark or kevin macloud would be interested.

Caravans ?
All the f**king caravans here seem to be on the road, not in storage . . .