Load sampling

[parsley]

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<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/04/cgcs-defeated-need-for-change-for.html"](how soon we forget)[/URL]</strong></p>

[charliep]

Parsley will have noted my lack of participation in the thread on traceability (maybe mine). the start of this process (traceability) would be for a farmer to know what they have in the bin on both quality and consumer desired traits. The next part is recording in an organized fashion and sharing.

Watched an interesting show on Larry King live (CNN) about food safety with a highlight on ecoli. Livestock for a number of different reasons is having to move to full traceability. Sampling and recording are key elements of this.

[ado089]

Accurate bin samples are quite possible the most important thing you can do on your farm. At minimum 3 copies of that sample should be taken. One for your long term records for dispute resolution, one to go to the grain commision for independant grading so you know what you're actualy dealing with, then at least one sample for every company you want to shop that grain to. It doesn't take much, we vaccume pack our long term samples, one year usualy fits into a document box. Once you know what you have and what the buyers are offering you can start negotiating on grade, protein, trucking incentives...

Anyone who isn't doing this either has too much money or is an idiot. I've seen "offers" from the companies result in $7-35/mt more than the lowest offer.

[parsley]

charliep, I did notice you had gone missing. lol

I just assumed everyone took a sample of their grain! Three or four.

Vacum packed is dandy!

One Zip lock bag permanently stored for reference, wound with duct tape and the date combined, crop variety, field# storage bin, written on with a marker, are good. Can't open them unless you absolutely need to for reference. File according to year.

Fill one and keep in the glove compartment of your half ton. You never know where you end up, so have a sample handy.

Get a protein reading. Saudi Arabia bought all 14%. Maybe you can blend a little at home to bring your protein up to speed if it's better on one field than another. A falling number test if you want to make a bit more money from wheat that will make good bread.

Smell. Make note of it. Tell your buyer to note it.

Pars

[Hopperbin]

I take samples while filling bins with a scoop from the truck evenly timed to get average sample, keep samples of every bin in a plastic pail sometimes if moisture is changing I have more than one pail per bin as I like to know where the wet stuff is. I drop in a note with moisture, bin #, and anything else of importance like field location, temp. of grain etc. When the company reps come out to check my samples they like what they see. I don't bag in ziplock so my grain moisture falls in the pails over time, but I already have moisture written on the note. My protein checks come out quite well, with what is hauled in and I can guess quite well what the dockage should be if any on a load. My samples are usually kept until next harvest when I need the pails again. Works well for me.

[checking]

Ado, don't you please have a category somewhere between rich and an idiot? I remember my grade 5 teacher saying that an idiot was the worse thing you could possibly call anyone.

Sitting in the office of a grain buyer, talking about nothing in particular, we were interrupted by the manager asking the grain buyer to come to his office to verify what a neighbour of ours was agreeing to on all the qualities of grain of his loads that you could list. I'd hate to have to get to that state of management.

I look at it this way. I have 100 super B's of a grain to sell. Each load is probed prior to unload. Their probe comes after combine trashing, combine tank unloading, truck unloading, binning to aerate, moving the grain to bins without fans, and reloading at some point onto a truck for sale. All these processes involve some mixing, stirring, or agitation of the grain. How much is enough, particularily when your fields are not flat Regina, or Rosetown Plains where variability may not be an issue? Surely, on the probability of that probe over 100 loads, it's going to hit above, below and on the mark of your vacuum pack method. Unless you're like that neighbour described above who has to have the individual deal on every load he hauls. That gets tiring awfully fast, and even I could see it on the faces of the manager, and grain buyer.

If you have one load for sale, by all means - go your route.

[ado089]

The point is to not have a deal on every load! The point is to have all of your grain bought at the same grade, same protein, same dockage, same moisture... If you aren't doing that you will get screwed on those things. If you're selling grain by the load you're giving them a chance to dock you grade, charge tough, find frost/midge damage and screw with protein. I don't keep a sample for every load, it's a sample for every bin and/or field and it doesn't get vaccumed packed because I'm anal, it get's vaccum packed so that my samples fit in a box instead of taking up the whole garage. When I bought grain in a past life I used to love it when people where too lazy to shop, negotiate or even know what they were selling. It was a quick way to make back all that moeny lost on chem and fert.

[wmoebis]

This ado089, is what I've been getting at.

How many guys can grade there own grain even to the point of being able to negotiate with any grain company? Is the best deal even close to what quality you have. Do you have room for blending, that a grain company could use and you could use as leverage for your deal?

[ado089]

I don't think many people actualy know what to look for when it comes to grading, that's why it's important to get accurate samples and get your grain out there. Get offers/grades from as many people as possible including grading from the grain commission. When I bought grain alot of deals were made around grade, moisture, protein, and trucking premiums. Usualy there was no problem "blending" for individual customers. I did run into problems though if I wanted Winnipeg to blend two customers grain to get malt for example. The grain is technicaly not blended at the elevator, much, but don't think that they don't skim in lower quality grain into exceptionaly good quality grain. And yes they do get to keep the difference between what is bought and what is sold. The CWB does the same thing, if I recall #2CWRS doesn't really exist on the global market.

[checking]

I had to drop down from the new post pile after witnessing the reaction of someone who appears to have snorted a line of durum flour mixed with mustard paste!!!

Good response you two. Just find it extreme.

Now, tell me if you have a 100 foot scale in your yard because I don't see you trusting elevator weights either? Split axle weighing through grandfathered plants is a horror story in waiting. Some weigh the grain through the back scale after unload. How comfortable is that?

Do you insist that the probe sample sucked out on the driveway be added to the scale weight? Some nefarious maintenance employee on managerial orders may have installed a shunt to bypass the sampling route!!

I get what you're saying, and one of you knows the legal tricks. Were you at least friendly to the farmers while accessing the idiots?!!

Has it come to the point where we require an electronics service book to calibrate to our standards, sampling equipment? One of you is saying, yes.

[wmoebis]

I trust all grain company employees to be doing the best they can at their job. Otherwise I don't think management would have them in that position.

Your sample is the most important part of your load. This is where your grade, dockage, protein and moisture come from. This is the bases on what you are paid.
It is equaly the most important part for the company as this is the bases on what they pay you for, bin on and know what is in there system for quality control and shipable stocks. Therefore it is in best interest of both of you to be sure that the sample is a true representation of the load.

When it comes to the quality of that sample, I think that it is in the producers best interest to know the quality of what he has for sale. For sure the buyer does.

We trust weights and measures to monitor the scale system in elevators right down to the mettler gram scales. IE: third party inspection. Samplers and protein machines on the other hand are not monitored. We take the word of our buyers to tell us what we have unless we run a sample of known quality through to qualify that the machine is accurate. I have seen lots of times when an agent has said " this machine is out .2 or .3 so we will have to add or subtract that".

Should one be happy with opening the bin door, throwing out the mouse nest and grabbing a sample and taking payment on that? Even if it is graded "rejected acct. excreta"? Or is a true representative sample of the bin better for all concerned. We, as producers knowing what is in that sample and how to assess it so we are on equal ground with buyer is part 2.

By the way some prefer inhaling tea leaves mixed sage.

[ado089]

Maybe idiot was too strong of a word, but if we can get past that. Good bin sample taken while filling the bin is one of the best ways to make more $ on your farm without spending a dime. The scale is federaly inspected and when they stick the probe in if you already have an agreement on what your selling they will only be probing so they know what bin they need to put it in. Do the math, even if all you're able to do is draw a bigger trucing premium, let's say $5/mt more x 1.5mt/ac for wheat let's say, that's an extra $7.50/ac you'll have in your pocket for the cost of a baggie and a tuna can on a stick. This example would probably be the minimum of what should be able to do.

[ado089]

Another trick too is to take as much grain as possible early off the combine because it's usualy the best quality of the year. That way there is nothing to "blend" later if the quality starts to drop.

[ado089]

Sorry that is a trick the grain co will use.

[checking]

Humm!

You guys are alright. There is humour in both of you.

Thank you! I was hoping your middle ground might be "naive".

One would think that of all the things you can't trust that weight wouldn't be one of them. When an elevator has a bin called "own oats", and the manager tells you that every time he elevates oats he gains a lb/bushel, and he has cars of corn that he mixes with his bin of "own oats" to sell to local ranchers, then I get worried. How did he accumulate his own oats?

When truckers start talking to one another, because after all they are paid on tonnes delivered, and say that the thing that really pisses them off is that they had also delivered their own farm oats to the same plant, then I get more worried.

Well, up to the point where the procurement agent says we don't want any more loads from you. You're causing us too many problems.

To catch on to what's happening, the same elevator company with a full length truck scale allows you to weigh there first, before continuing on seven miles to the grandfathered oat plant which insists on providing you with a second scale ticket, and the two tickets are out 100 bushels on a tridem.

When weights and measures shuts the elevator down, and says they would be pleased to present their findings in a court of law, I get less worried.

Does anyone know how to spell Linear Grain? They still owe me $800.00 on the first three loads.

I can forgive, but I never forget life's little lessons.