Danish Units To Dry And Store Seeds

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 8

Danish Units To Dry And Store Seeds

One of a number of Canterbury farmers who are completing the installation of facilities for drying small seeds and grain and for bulk storage is Mr L. F. Chamberlain, of Brookside.

Mr Chamberlain is using a Danish-type blower, or fan unit, and also two Danish silos.

He says that as far as grain is concerned the drying part of his installation is only an insurance—he is not setting out specifically to dry grain. But he does plan to dry grass seed, and he is going to harvest grass seed out of condition —when it is at about the 20 per cent moisture content stage—and then dry it in the silos to about 14 or 13.5 per cent, before transferring it into plywood bins for dispatch to his seed firm’s store.

By being able to harvest small seeds earlier, he expects that losses of seed will be reduced, and he also hopes that it will enable grass straw to be baled and saved when it has suffered less loss of nutrients through weathering.

Type Of Blower The blower unit Mr Chamberlain will use is powered by a 7i h.p. electric motor. It is a high-pressure, lowvolume type of fan unit, and will be used to blow material into the silos, as well as ventilate or dry small seeds and grain, and eventually it may also be used to help to get them out of the silos. This type of fan develops a temperature rise of up to 9deg., and the mere movement of small seeds and grain into the silos will lower the moisture content of small seeds by up to 3 per cent, and of grain by about j per cent, according to information that Mr Chamberlain has received. When used as a conveyor the fan will move up to seven tons in an hour. Mr Chamberlain believes that he is the first in Canterbury to use the Danish type of silo. He understands there may be one or two in Southland. He will have two on his property as well as a corrugated iron unit to hold between 2000 and 3000 bushels. The circular Danish units will ultimately be raised from 13ft 6in to 17ft 9in; will have a diameter of 10ft Ilin, and will each hold between 1000 and 1200 bushels.

They comprise nine bands or rings each made up of four sections of Baltic pine strips or slats, with strips of aluminium alloy between the pine slats. The alloy strips have louvres in them, which open upwards and outwards to retain the grain or small seeds while allowing air being blown through the mass to escape. The pine slats and

aluminium alloy strips are wired together, and in the silo the bands are held together by angle iron rods, which are bolted together. Up the centre of the silo is a perforated metal pipe or tube on top of which sits a metal dome which acts as a spreader or distributor as the grain or small seeds drop down from a cyclone after being blown up.

To dry grain or small seeds, the fan can be used to blow in ordinary atmospheric air, if the humidity of the air is low enough, or warm air, as the fan will have an electric heater bank attached to it. The air blown in radiates outward 4ft 6in from the central tube or cone, and a valve is lowered down the tube to a point 4ft 6in below the surface of the grain or small seeds in the silo to control the movement of the air being blown in.

A Dual Purpose Mr Chamberlain will use his blower and silos to handle small seeds in the early stages of his harvest, and later he will use them for his wheat harvest.

He looks forward to the day when his wheat harvest will be a one-man operation. The man on the header harvester will drive a tip truck carrying five tons of grain or a tractor tip trailer to the silos when they are full, and the loads will be tipped into a wet grain pit, and the grain then elevated for screening before being carried by auger to one of the three silos for storage. The elevating and auguring will be controlled by switches which will automatically turn off when the process is finished, or if anything goes wrong. Eventually Mr Chamberlain also expects to use the blower unit to help to empty the silos by blowing air up through louvre floors to move grain or small seeds to the outlet after they have finished flowing by gravity. This season he expects to use a sweep auger to help to finish ■the unloading from the silos.

This harvest he will be handling about 25 acres of short rotation ryegrass for seed, 60 acres of white clover, 80 acres of wheat and 10 acres of garden peas. He expects that the drying facility will help in the handling of the clover crop by preventing the clover seed being damaged by grass seed harvested out of condition with the clover seed and enabling the crop to be harvested earlier.