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Bumper crops could lead to bagged on-farm storage

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Amarillo, Texas
January 30, 2008

Jimmy Hayes, a Calhoun County producer, didn’t want to take a chance on having to hold his harvest in the field because the grain elevators were full. He researched on-farm storage in the form of polyethylene bags.

These bags are not the typical seed or feed bag size – they are 200 foot long and can hold the equivalent of about four railcar loads of grain, so they are taking the place of storage buildings, Hayes said.

Because Hayes was working with a new product for storage in Texas, he asked Roy Parker, Texas AgriLife Extension Service entomologist from Corpus Christi, to help him determine if the corn would store sufficiently and if the insects could be controlled.

Pat Porter, AgriLife Extension entomologist in Lubbock, presented some of Parker’s early findings during the Texas High Plains Grain Elevator Workshop held in Amarillo recently.

“It’s an interesting technology that we need to know much more about before we can make recommendations,” Porter said, adding that he wasn’t aware of anyone trying it for grain storage in the High Plains yet.

“With the advent of grains for biofuels, we’ve found that we don’t have enough storage capacity,” he said. “This might give us another option.”

Parker said storage of corn in polyethylene bags started last spring when growers along the coast anticipated that harvest would be delayed as grain elevators exceeded capacity. “We got involved because people were unsure how the grain would store,” he said. “We’ve had corn in them for about five months now and it still looks good. We took samples of the grain as it went into the bags, had it officially tested, and are now monitoring on a monthly basis. We’re taking temperature, moisture readings, bushel weights and counting insects.”

In the last two months, Parker said, he’s only found one weevil in 16 samples each month. Coming out of the field, the corn had weevils in it, but a month later, there were none. The respiration of the grain is supposed to use up the oxygen resulting in eventual death of the insects. Incubated samples he kept, however, ended up with four weevils per quart sample in two of the 16 samples.

There’s been no real problems storing corn in the bags, he said, unless water or rats got in where it wasn’t sealed well. An electric fence was placed around the bags to keep feral hogs and other animals out.

He said corn must go into the bags at a moisture level below about 14.5 percent, the ends must be sealed well and the bags should be set up on hard ground.

While the protection looks good so far, the economists still need to look at the method along with insurance considerations and other costs involved, to determine if it is a viable alternative.

“Some are saying this is cheaper to do it this way,” he said. “It looks promising for short-term storage, at least in this area.”

Hayes believes it is cheaper, and more than just promising.

“This county turned a huge amount of grain this last year, and we knew we had to have some storage,” Hayes said. “We found this alternative.”

In researching the system, most information came from Argentina, Hayes said.

He said he was able to store 7,400-7,500 bushels of corn per 200-foot bag. They have unloaded some of the bags now, and there was no shrink due to loss of moisture. It went into the bag at 14 percent moisture, and it came out at 14 percent moisture, Hayes said.

“It is a dry grain system,” he said. “It doesn’t work for high moisture corn. We recommend around 14 percent for corn, 13.5 percent for grain sorghum and 12.5-13 for soybeans. The drier it is, the longer the shelf life.”

Hayes said he put up eight bags for himself and another eight bags for the local co-op. Several other producers with baggers put up eight bags each. He was the only one who bought an unloader, and he is allowing the other producers to borrow it for now.

When figuring the cost of it compared to a grain tank, he said, a 12-railcar grain tank would have cost $100,000. This system, the bagger and unloader cost $40,000, and one bag that would store the equivalent of 4.4 railcar loads cost $600.

“I’ll do it again regardless of the grain situation, because the system is much cheaper than going to commercial storage or building a tank,” Hayes said. “The alternative was watching it sit in the field. It’s a must for us.”

Stephen Tillery, operations manager for Attebury Grain in Amarillo, said while he doesn’t see his company using the alternative, it might be one for other commercial grain storage companies or even producers.

“It gives some companies another avenue to store grain without letting it go out of condition,” he said. “And, if we keep having good crop years like we did this year, it might be beneficial to the farmer to have some on-farm storage. This would be a viable method for him to keep it for himself for feeding cattle or even (use on) dairies.”

He said this was the first time he’s seen corn and even wheat on the ground in a long time, and it immediately starts to deteriorate with the first rain or first snow. “The most positive thing about them is the fact you have them there if you need them, but you don’t have the high dollar cost of building a building,” Tillery said.

by Kay Ledbetter, Texas A&M University

 

 

 

 

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