Their most popular uses are: for food grain sorghum , as livestock feed forage sorghum , to produce bioenergy biomass sorghum , and as syrup sweet sorghum. Food Buzz. Enter elevators for the double win! What Are Grain Elevators? How They Work When a farmer harvests corn, wheat or sorghum and heads to the elevator, the truck is weighed to determine how much grain there is, and the grain will be sampled to determine its quality.
Why Use Grain Elevators Storing grain is an important aspect of the business of farming. Meet the Franklins from Western Kansas.
Meet Kyler Millershaski. Q: Are cattle used for purposes other than food? From there it is dumped into the garner and hopper scale for weighing. The grain is then lowered into the back pit from where it is re-elevated and dropped into the car spout.
Despite the CPR's demand for standard elevators, there was considerable variation in profile, height and storage capacity of the earliest elevators, especially in Manitoba. William Hespeler, in Niverville , Manitoba, constructed the first grain elevator, a wooden, silo-like building, in A more familiar form made its appearance in in Gretna, Manitoba, when Ogilvie Milling Company built a wooden, square, 25,bushel elevator.
While companies like Ogilvie preferred an elevator with a pyramidal roof and a centrally located pyramidal-roofed cupola, others opted for an offset cupola. Others chose a gable roof with a gable-roofed cupola.
By the s, most companies were building the standard, or traditional, 30, to 40 bushel elevator with a gable roof and a gable-roofed cupola. Elevators were typically 24 m high or higher. No other building dominated the skyline as did the elevator. Annexes, permanent and temporary, were built to add storage capacity. Rectangular wood crib annexes, usually with a gable roof, were designed as permanent facilities. Most were constructed as separate buildings but, in the late s, some were adjoined to the elevator.
Early crib annexes held approximately 30, to 35, bushels; those built in the s held 60, bushels. Another permanent type of annex was the twin elevator, an older, smaller elevator that was moved alongside a newer, larger elevator. Many older elevators escaped demolition by being twinned in this way. The balloon annex, which appeared in the s, was designed as a temporary facility. A one-storey wood frame building, it was not as sturdy as a crib annex, and tended to sag after a time — hence the term "balloon.
Its octagonal structure was also not as strong as other annex types and has largely disappeared from the landscape. A more recent annex type is the metal bin. Typically holding 30, bushels, bins became common in the s.
Not compartmentalized as are other annexes, metal bins are most cost effective for large volumes of a single type and quality of grain. Elevators were constantly upgraded as new technologies were introduced. Original gasoline engines were replaced with electrical equipment; truck-dumping mechanisms were improved; larger scales and larger and longer movable loading spouts to facilitate the loading of freight cars were installed; wooden legs were replaced with metal ones; and new driveways to accommodate longer trucks were constructed.
The moisture content is a major factor for storing safely. High moisture can lead to mold and fungus. As grains reach maturity the moisture content diminishes. Storage of grain will allow flexibility to the farmer to use marketing and possibly receive season price increases. There is a cost incurred for storing grains, so the farmer must decide based on storage capacity and expected returns after storage.
If selling the crop later for a price that exceeds the current selling price is the better decision, the farmer will choose to store the grain. Proper use of storage will potentially increase the income cost for the grain. However, the farmer will need to take into consideration storage costs, which can include facility cost, interest on grain inventory, extra drying of the grain, shrinkage of the grain and handling fees.
Farmers have choices on how to sell their grain. They can choose to do a forward contract and sell to a grain dealer at any time.
A forward contract allows the farmer to know exact price, exact quantity and date of delivery. The downside is if prices go up, the farmer is already locked into the forward contract. If the farmer does choose to store the grain and sell later, he can sell to ethanol plants, bio-diesel plants or to livestock feed producers.
The farmer will negotiate prices and will choose to sell throughout the year. Keeping in mind the cost to store and the importance of keeping the grain suitable for purchase. When the grain is sold it may leave the elevator it may be into a rail car, truck or barge. Gravity is usually used to load grains from bins to the loading station. The process of loading and a reversal of the process for unloading. The empty truck pulls onto the scales and is weighed.
The truck will pull under the spout and the grain will load back into the truck. Both the trucker and the elevator operator watch the gauges to know when to shut off the grain. The truck will pull back onto the scales to get an accurate weight and then will deliver the load to the destination. There is so much more to agriculture. That is, until I had an opportunity to visit a grain elevator in North Dakota. A grain elevator is a complex of concrete or steel grain bins also called silos or tanks and numerous augers and conveyors.
These conveyors lift or elevate grain from ground level up to the top of the bins—thus the name elevator. Wheat is the grain most widely handled by elevators, although they also unload, store and ship soybeans, corn, rye, and many other cereal grains and seeds. Elevators serve a vital function that allows farmers to sell their wheat and other crops into the global grain system.
Each farming community had at least one small grain elevator that served the local farmer. However, consolidation, in both farming and grain elevator co-ops, has led to fewer, but much larger elevators. Whereas a local elevator may have received grain within a mile radius, today the draw area may now span miles and include thousands of farmers.
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