[X80]

Just wondering if any AUS are using the smallaire system, fan forced air into a rail that runs about 3-4 ft up from base of silo from side to side. I'm wondering how effective they are? I can utilise total fire ban days and pump pretty hot dry air in and dry grain, allowing me to harvest without my blood pressure hitting 5000 psi. Main crops would be barley, wheat, faba beans, oats, lupins and field peas.

I was thinking of hooking up my field bins to a manifold so I can dry one at a time or 3. Then I may have between 2-4 50 tonne silos for 2016, would like them to be of a manifold as well.

As for pumping generated hot air in I will have to do some cost studies.

I don't want to spend a billion dollars on a mobile dryer as I don't have the labour to do all this, don't really have the need to dry it in a 12 hour period, fine if it takes a week or if I have to wait for hot weather.

Barley dries well here in the paddock so it may only need 1% taken off
Wheat is the worst, will need on average 2% on average taken off
Unsure of how canola monola will go but prob 2-3%
Faba, peas, lupins..maybe 1-2%...

Any information appreciated.

Ant

 

[blanchfarm]

We've got some aerators in some silos and a rocket in another They work well when the weather is right.im not an expert on grain drying but I've done a bit and someone will pull me up if I'm wrong but it's not the hot air that dries the grain from what I'm told.
We have done a bit of work for the old bloke that invented agridry field bins and he tells me that the hot air only makes the grain sweet it's the cold air that draws the moisture off and out of the bin.
Having said all that we have great successes with bringing sorghum and corn down in aerators from 15 16 to 13.5%.
We have put a lot of grain through our rocket but it's still handy to have he old moridge grain dryer in the shed.

 

[X80]

Roger can u get grain down to 12.5 for delivery to receival point?

Ant

 

[Auscocky]

If you go to the "Libary" page on the Agridry website there is a lot of useful info on drying and aeration. Rodger, how is John F going? I haven't seen him for decades.

 

[blanchfarm]

auscocky it's been awhile since I've seen him.
A bloke I know bought his place near allora.
We used to harvest that wheat he grow Qbis wheat or something. He used to put it in the dry at like 28% and you had to top the dryer up as the wheat lost it bulk throughout the day.
Was a very good experience work with John. Also one of the first blokes to convert a indecent front suspension tractor to 3m.
Once asked him how's the best way to dry sunflowers he replied boy drying sunflowers is like drying petrol with a match.

 

[X80]

Ok cheers, if it's cool weather that's needed boy am I in the right place! If some heat is required I wonder what's best option and de-humidifiers...anyone in Canada use such a thing?

Ant...

 

[madsnake]

Find a cow cockey that will feed it quick and sell it wet.

 

[X80]

The agridry q&a document is very good and comprehensive, it appears I need to do a climate study for the months of jan & feb to see if fan forced will work here this close to the coast, the air may be to humid but I can also add heat as its cool. I will speak to agridry, might try to rent a controller etc to see how much "run time" I would get here, or may be able to get a weather data logger and send to them for study.

Interesting and as usual not straight forward. Second hand batch dryers rare as rocking horse shot down here. Might be a market here if had drying capabilities?

Ant..

 

[X80]

Simple video but the bit about air temp is interesting, I might have a shot here, will search for a data logger and see if it's a possibility to dry. Even if I could wipe 1-1.5% off it would be the difference between harvesting this year and not.

There still harvesting at inverleigh !

Ant...