Getting the most from on-farm grain storage requires careful planning to ensure that facilities fit the farm’s needs, and a commitment to management of stored grain to ensure quality.

The dramatic increase in Midsouth acres of “yellow gold” in recent years has filled the rural landscape with a corresponding proliferation of “silver monuments,” says Mike Buschermohle.

The flood tide of corn at harvest has resulted “in long lines of trucks waiting to unload at elevators, horrible shortages of barges for river transport, sometimes wild swings in basis and other factors that have spurred intense interest in on-farm storage,” the University of Tennessee professor of biosystems engineering said at a recent grain storage workshop at Webb, MS, sponsored by the Mississippi State University Extension Service, Delta Rice Services, Bunge North America, and the GSI Group.

But, he cautions, anyone thinking about making the hefty investment in new grain-storage facilities should first ask several important questions.

• Do I really want this?
• Will it help my marketing strategy?
• Will I be a good manager of this storage?
• Will I be willing to put forth the effort needed to manage this storage?
• What capacity do I need?
• Will my need be short term or long term?
• Do I plan to add irrigation/more irrigation to my farm, affecting the volume of grain produced?
• How much grain do I want to store and how much will I take to an elevator?
• How many different crops will I grow?
• Will I need to segregate biotech from non-biotech?
• What are my grain handling/hauling capabilities?
• Do I have adequate combining equipment, and do I plan to purchase more?

“The more thorough your planning on the front end,” Buschermohle says, “the better your facilities will be and the fewer bottlenecks you’ll have once they’re in use. You need to know your expected total capacity needs for not just the year you construct a bin, but for what you expect in the future.”

An eight-row combine, running at 4 mph and cutting 175-bu. corn will harvest almost 18,000 bu. in a 10-hour day, he notes. That grain will fill an 18-ft.-diameter bin to a depth of 88 ft., a 41-ft. bin to a depth of 17 ft., and a 48-ft.-diameter bin to a depth of 10 ft.

With 1 bu. of corn requiring about 1.25 cu. ft. of storage space, a 30-ft.-diameter bin will hold 11,643 bu., a 42-ft. bin, 25,000 bu.

A complete system for grain storage, Buschermohle says, generally consists of receiving and elevator facilities, wet holding areas, drying equipment, conveying and aerating equipment and load-out facilities.

“If you let corn dry down in the field, it can cut costs, but weather conditions add an element of uncertainty, and being able to dry in storage allows you to manipulate the harvest window.

“Dryers add flexibility to a storage operation, allowing you to get in the field for harvest earlier and to harvest at higher moisture content.”

At 20% moisture, he says, 74,000 lbs. of corn that have just gone into a trailer from the combine will have 15,000 lbs. of moisture.

“Regardless of whether you dry corn on-farm or take it to the elevator, you’re going to lose about 5.8% of that water to shrinkage.”

Maintaining the quality of grain in storage requires an integrated approach that incorporates a number of tools and practices, Buschermohle says.

Drying systems that may be utilized include:

• Natural air for in-bin, continuous-flow drying. “This results in lower-cost drying and high-quality grain.” With a 1.5-cfm airflow/bu., it takes 5.5 days to dry 17,850 bu. in a 42-ft. bin; at 1 cfm, it takes 8.3 days.
• In-bin shallow-batch drying: With grain at a depth of 4 ft. and 140° air at 14 cfm, drying time is about 6 hours; for 8 cfm, about 10 hours. “This method takes a tremendous amount of fan power and requires a stirrer or other device.”
• Continuous-flow drying, with 180-200° temperatures and 50-100-cfm airflow, can dry about 900 bu./hour from 20% down to 15%.