With the crop nearly made for this year many individuals are now looking at the fall, getting equipment ready and even locking in fall crop inputs.

I would like to make the early plea to give some thought to the size of the crop and the potential need for grain drying. If the optimism on this fall’s harvest continue combined with corn running about two weeks behind developmentally, I would suspect we’ll be dealing with a big crop that will require a big dryer. I’ve been told that the last time we dealt with a bumper corn crop and high moisture corn at harvest was back in the early 1990’s. Yes, some of you that know me realize I was not old enough to have this firsthand experience. But I am bright enough to realize that the pace of grain harvest has increased tremendously since then. And I do know that, for the most part, the past several years had allowed the crop to be dried down in the field. Needless to say, it’s been many years since grain dryers have been used at peak capacity. This is something that we may very well face this fall.

Proper grain drying, handling and storage can be extremely beneficial if you take care to do it correctly. The more grain being dried at a single time the longer it takes to dry down. It’s not faster to fill the bin since drying time takes longer and can possibly result in spoilage at the top. In fact spoilage in the top may be accelerated since hot, moist air is being pushed through the grain. Grain that is not dried and cooled within a couple of days of harvest can result in spoilage losses. A great resource is the University of Minnesota’s Agriculture: Grain Drying, Handling and Storage webpage.

There are pro’s and con’s with both commercial and on-farm drying. Commercially, you don’t pay for over drying and you don’t have the fixed and maintenance cost of the drying equipment. With commercial drying the cost per point per bushel often escalates with higher moisture corn. With on-farm drying you pay the actual cost of drying and get added convenience during harvest. Shrinkage may be lower with on-farm storage.

Desired grain moisture for safe storage depends on the length of time you plan to store. Soybean stored under 6 months should be dried to 13% while storage over 6 months should be stored at 11%. Corn stored under 6 months should be dried to 15% while storage over 6 months should be storedat 13%.

All for now, Mark.

SOURCE: ISU’s Mark Licht