Aeration ?

[TOM4CWB]

Braveheart,

We did exactly the same for wheat that was 16.5moisture and brought it down to 13 percent.

In the spring when the RH is low... bringing up the grain temp when low RH will reduce the moisture in Wheat nicely. May 15 to June 10 is usually quite dry air RH and worked well when we did it. Best are Full floor Air systems with 5hp on 5000 and 10 hp on 10,000 min with 18 foot eve max heights.

[farmaholic]

Tom, so once the grain temp has been lowered to average daily temps, we are back to relying on low RH and decent temps again?

And Cotton's point of only running the fans at night would have it's biggest effect only during Initial cooling, if cooler air holds
less moisture than warm air the same could be said for the grain? But once again, once its cooled to average daily temps, won't the RH have to be low and temps higher to get the grain to start drying
again?
I've always followed the equilibrium moisture charts. Your thoughts on moving the drying front and the chancesre-wetting the grain?

[boarderbloke]

Thanks for all the discussion and comments.

[TOM4CWB]

Farmaholic,

We have an old vertex 6600 grain dryer that if there is a big drying project... we will dry the wheat from 18 to 15 and not cool it... put it in an aeration bin and bring it down from 35c to 10c taking out the last point and a half of moisture in the cooling process... while increasing the capacity of the dryer by not needing to cool the grain in the bottom 2 tiers. Then we have blending power to go with Natural Air dryed grain... at say 16 percent moisture.

Objective being least handling of grain through the artificial drying system... most efficient least cost by blending to 14.5 on paper.

Have been able to work with our marketers and make this work.

All the best!

[Hopperbin]

Agree tom. Today in my area may not be able to dry only dry by cooling. Spring is a good time to aerate but must cool grain before winter. I just must comment anything under 3, 5hp fan through it away.

[farmaholic]

Thanks Tom, that makes sense.

.We don't have a drier but a bunch of aeration bins. Really only dry peas and cool other grains especially canola and flax or what ever is in the aeration bins(people used to quit combining canola here when it got too hot because of storage risk, besides the straw breaks up to smithereens when it so hot and hard to separate in the combine).

Wouldn't want to be without it now....

[farmaholic]

Thanks Tom, that makes sense.

.We don't have a drier but a bunch of aeration bins. Really only dry peas and cool other grains especially canola and flax or what ever is in the aeration bins(people used to quit combining canola here when it got too hot because of storage risk, besides the straw breaks up to smithereens when it so hot and hard to separate in the combine).

Wouldn't want to be without it now....