Mobile Color Sorter: would you hire one

[Klause]

If a guy had a mobile unit and came to your farm to remove ergot and fuz and upgrade your wheat from a 3 or a feed to a 1 would you hire him? Would 45 cents a bu be too much?

[BreadWinner]

If it's a 3 the discount would be around 50 cents, it would hardly make sense unless it was unmarketable. The stuff cleaned out would go in the dump and be worthless. Not seeing the benefit myself.

[btjadenlepp]

The discount could be a lot wider than that, but it will vary over time.

Can your sorter upgrade lentils as well as wheat?

[Wheatking]

Does the grain have to be cleaned first before running through a sorter.

[Klause]

1 to a 3 is 85 cents.


The feed is worthless because hogs can't eet it.


Yes it can do lentils. Barley. Peas. Ergot in rye and wheat




No it will take bin run grain. It will take white caps out.... and secondary fuzz infection (pink shit)

[charliep]

I would be carefull/question the value of color sorting for fusarium. Fusarium head blight damaged kernels are an indicator of presense of DON (deoxynivalenol) but not a true measurement. You can have the mycotoxins/molds without the FHB damaged kernels. From what I remember, many parts of the world are more interested in presense/amount of molds versus the damaged kernels.

[BreadWinner]

Get a vomy test done, you might have a unmarketable crop. You would have to notify crop insurance before nov15.

[Hopperbin]

In all fareness if it did work grain elevators would have one. Some grain companies have been pretty good in the past sizing barley and drying for malt. So did they speed them things up or something? Wouldnt unthreshed heads make a flow problem? Just thinking common sense. Hard to see wheat flowing like a pea through a colour sorter. Gotta see it.

[charliep]

Your question was likely not 100 % fusarium but I found the article below interesting. I note in particular the section on storing and handling fusarium laden crops.

[URL="https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-33-W.pdf"]FHB[/URL]

Quote:

Handling Grain Safely
The mycotoxins FHB produce are typically concentrated
in shriveled tombstone kernels (Figure 4). These
lightweight kernels can be separated from healthy grain
at harvest by increasing the combine’s fan speed.
After harvest, it is critical to properly store diseased
grain to prevent further contamination. Dry infected
grain to less than 18 percent moisture to stop growth of
the pathogen and mycotoxin production, and then
dried to less than 13 percent moisture to prevent
spoilage by storage fungi.
DON is an extremely stable mycotoxin and drying and
storing grain will not reduce DON levels in harvested
grain. However, DON concentration will not increase
in properly stored grain.
When storing infected grain, avoid mixing it with good
quality grain. The light, tombstone kernels caused by
the disease tend to accumulate in the center of storage
bins, and hot spots may occur if higher moisture fine
material is present in the core as well. Use a cleaner to
remove fines from the wheat before binning and a grain
spreader to distribute infected kernels more evenly to
minimize spoilage risks. If a cleaner and a spreader are
not available, remove the central core of wheat as soon
after binning as possible.

[Klause]

You'd be surprised how many companies have color sorters for grain. Look at how many have Bomill ' s already...All this unmarked - able grain will find a home eventually