GRAIN-GRADING.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 98, 16 July 1927, Page 26

GRAIN-GRADING.

A MECHANICAL PROCESS. AMERICAN INVENTION. At a time when New Zealand’s barley harvest is receiving so careful a combing, the news that Harry Rutherford Warren, a U.S.A. alfalfa seed-grower, lias invented a mechanical chemical agricultural wizard, will be read with interest by those in the seed and grain business here. With chemical solutions, vacuums, and compressed air, Mr Warren cleans and grades all kinds of field and garden seeds with a degree of accuracy that is said in the States to surpass the work of a man’s skilled lingers, or any other seed-cleaning devices that have been made. Where Luther Burbank, the late plant wizard of Santa Rosa, Cal., sorted out a teasponoful of the finest seed by the tedious hand method, Warren separates by the ton wheat from cheat, weed seeds from grain, and the finest kernels from the poorest kernels. Burbank’s patience made it posible for him to pick and plant only the finest of the best seeds. Warren’s process makes it posible for every farmer and gardener to plant only the finest of the best seeds. For eight years Mr Warren has been quietly and most of the time secretly working on his seed handling process, leading up to the building of the giant apparatus that now stands in the heart g* Chicago, 88 feet high, filling the old Schoenhofen brewery building from floor to dome. This is the second large apparatus which has been built at a cost of $275,000; the first one cost more than $40,000. Patent rights on the basic principle of the process have been granted. In the Warren process, says a writer in the “Chicago Sunday Tribune,* grain is not touched until everything has been done that can be done with the cleaning and grading machines now by seed-cleaning experts. Then i Warren takes the seeds and not only frees them from all weed seeds, diseased kernels, and foreign matter, bu t Sparates the grain into various grades according to weight. This is done through the use of chemical solutions with varying degrees of specific gravity. The separation tank used is a giant test tube about one-half inch thick* 9 feet high and 4 feet in diameter. In the separation process the grain is sucked from the storage bins up into the separation tank. The kernels float in the liquid like buoys, and the various grades are left in stratas—the lightest kernels boh up like corks to tlie top of the chemical solution, the next grade falls lower, while the heaviest kernels sink like anchors to the bottom of the tube. The graded grain, grade by grade, is dropped into a centrifugal machine below, where it is cashed in clear water, all the excess moisture is thrown off. and from there it goes to driers. When the process is complete the grain is stored in sacks or bins in its original state, so far as moisture content is concerned. One thousand pounds of seed can be handled in the apparatus at a time. Clover seed, for example, is separated at the rate of 10001 b every 20 minutes. All kinds of grains can be cleaned and graded in the Warren apparatus, including seeds of field crops, \-egetables, and flowers. A different process is required for each kind of seed.