Welcome again to VC eg today on September the third 20-20, We're very pleased this morning to be joined by Dr. Kenneth. Hello bang, extension engineer and professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering, North Dakota State University. So thank you so much, Dr. Hello, thanks for joining us this morning. I think we've got an excellent presentation on tap. Really excited to have you join us. Topic of discussion this morning is going to be cool and drying and storage. Thank you to Dr. Bobbitt grosso for wonderful recommendation. I'd really like to shout out that. Thank you for helping us get connected with Dr. hello bang. We're really excited about it and hopefully this'll be a great resource for us to use and share with producers here in Virginia. Dr. hello, bang. Thank you again for joining us and we appreciate you being here. Well, you're welcome. I always appreciate an opportunity to share some information on grain drying and storage. It seems like to frequently, that's a topic that gets overlooked. And so we're going to run through some slides very quickly, touch on a number of topics. And hopefully we'll leave plenty of time at the end for that question and answer session. So the focus today is going to be on corn. But that doesn't mean that we have to stay with that topic. That when they get to the Q and a will go into whatever type of commodity that we want to talk about. I always start with at least a comment related to grain safety. There are some hazards working around grain. Sometimes people just need to be gently reminded. There are those hazards in and take the appropriate safety procedures so that we don't end up being heard. While we'll review with the green on the top left corners of a picture of a man that's actually in failure. That is a pretty dramatic, but certainly can happen at anytime that we get the unloading from the side of the bin. Or if we end up with trusting that transfers some of the load over to the side and then we start unloading. So we do have to be concerned about structural integrity. Of course, the big one is being caught in the grain or a trap, either with a cross that forms and then you fall into a void space underneath or more frequently geyser and they're trying to move chunks of grain so that it keeps on voting. And unfortunately, I was just on a call yesterday with a rescue crew and they said it's rare that somebody comes out of that alive. So it's important for us to stay out of the ban on who are unloading the grain. Another one that I think sometimes gets overlooked is particularly if we end up with any spoilage. That mold spores is a respiratory hazard. And so make sure that there weren't worrying respiratory protection as we're working around or grain. Most of the storage problems with grain end up focusing either around mole girls or spoilage and insect infestations. And this slide just goes through and indicates some of the parameters have any impact on mold, mold growth and an insect activity. And I've highlighted the temperature in red because I think not only do we need to be concerned about the moisture content of the grain, but we need to be CAN trolling the temperature as well. Anything that's gone into long-term storage, we really need to be thinking about a grain protect. And so we want to start out with a clean structured. Particularly if we've had any insect infestation, browse apps. Most of those insects, so find a spot, like say said, said around the bend, our bin size, just waiting for new, fresh grain to come in. And so it's critical that we think of all the different components that been structure be claiming that as much as we can apply and been insecticide if we choose. And particularly the under floor area is an area that is hard to clean out. From a practical standpoint, we probably can't clean under there rather routine annual bases. So if we have add an insect infestation, it's important that we maybe think of a team negating that empty then they kill off all the insects before they would come in. I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this slide because frequently I get asked about what moisture content is the gray need to be in order to safely store. And I go back to the fundamentals of what's required to prevent mold growth. And so in the upper left corner, gotta a queue will there. We say that air is at 70 degrees and 60% relative humidity. If we had a hard spring wheat in that environment for a long enough period, it would come to equilibrium and at about 13.3% moisture. That's important for us because typically most of our molds and started annoying. Once we have the environment's among the rain kernels exceeding about 70%. So as I come up with a long-term recommended moisture content. I tend to say on the safe side of that 70% idol was fixity. Saml, little, a little bit higher than that, but I think 60% relative humidity in that storage. It should be the goal. So as we started looking at the equilibrium moisture content of some of the different types of grain that we work with that gives us an indication of what kind of moisture content we should be thinking about. For warm season storage. Today we are going to be talking about porn. And so if we look at the equilibrium moisture content of corn at 70 degrees and 60% relative humidity were roughly 12.8. So I think long term we really need to be thinking of 13% moisture, the market moisture, or might be at 15.5, 15% moisture. But that does not mean that we can safely store in the warm temperatures at that moisture content. That 15.5 was established. One, a lot of our corn harvested under cool conditions, went into storage and probably went to market, still there in the winter months. And so a lot of the rain was in a very pool environment. Today will typically talk about maybe 14 present moisture is the recommended moisture content. It 49 into long-term summer type storage. I really think we need to be on the dry side of that 14, somewhere closer to 30. Soybeans. Same thing there we're looking at 10.2 roughly. And so the long-term moisture would be 11%, again 13% and scan on the market moisture. We probably can get my storing side being somewhere between 1112. But if we're going to be looking at long-term storage, probably need to be down closer to that 11%. So since moisture content is so important, it's critical that we be accurately measuring that moisture content. Most of the moisture meters are not only affected by the moisture content, but also by temperature. And so many of the meters today will be automatically majoring the temperature, the grain Sappho, adjusting the moisture found then reading so that we're getting hopefully an accurate reading. But all of those meters have an operating range infrequently. They're not going to be accurate on whole grain. Probably not as much of an issue in Virginia is it might be in North Dakota. But when we started looking at it, rained temperatures that are but say around 40 degrees, typically. That's kind of the lower limit for a lot of our meters. So double-check the owner's manual and find out what the operating ranges for that adjustment. If we have any moisture variation on a kernel or within a kernel that's gonna have an impact. And so anything drain that's going through a grain dryer or where we've taken cool grain into a warm environment where we might have condensation or even early morning or we might have condensation forming that's going to cause an error in the reading. So I really encourage people to, to double-check that initial reading. Take the sample, stick it in a plastic bag or other sealed container, give it six to eight hours to equilibrate, bring it to roughly room temperature. And then recheck that voiced, you're dead to verify that we are getting an accurate reading. And that's going to be true whether we're working with a lower cost unit, like the upper lab. Or even if we go with one of the more expensive units such as the bottom left, what do we do if the moisture content of our grain is exceeding that recommended moisture content. While I'm going to just touch real quickly on a number of different types of drying options. First, we'll talk about natural air drying. With natural air drying and even storage management. It's critical that we know what are local climate is and what conditions we might have available. I use a website called City dash data that has the weather data for a lot of different areas. I didn't know which location to pick in Virginia, so I just pick one and the central party, the state. And this is the monthly average temperature and humidity. And so if we look at the curves, if we're looking at an October conditions where probably averaging about 60 degrees, if we get into November, we're still probably look in at an average temperature around 50 degrees. So that tells us part of what we need to know for storage or for dry. The other thing we need to look at is humidity and they list the, the morning Hi. And then the afternoon. And so you pick a spot in the middle. And if we were looking at good share of the fall or probably located at somewhere in the 65-70 percent relative humidity range. So why is that important? Wow. When we started doing that natural air drying, the court has been dry to the equilibrium moisture content of the grain or for the grain for the conditions that we have. And I just pull one of our North Dakota slides. If we look here at the conditions for October with three degrees of heat coming from the fan, we're probably looking at about an average of 50 degrees. Relative humidity ran around that 16%. And what we find is that if we were running the van 24 hours a day, we could bring that moisture content to roughly that 13.5% moisture that we want. So as I look at Virginia conditions, a lot of times I think you're going to be pretty close to that scenarios. So if we're looking at at moisture contents and I don't recommend over about 21 is the maximum moisture that we handle with natural heir. But if you add adequate airflow, that really should be an option available to you in Virginia. The one thing to keep in mind though, with an air flow rate of one cubic foot per minute for abortions. So let's say we get a 10 thousand bushel, then we're moving 10 thousand cubic feet of air per minute through that grain bin. We're looking at roughly 40 days of fan time. And we might want to try to to get it down a little bit quicker than that. Going to one of the border cfm per bushel will reduce that drying time to roughly a month. And so natural air drying, as long as you're looking at initial moistures under 21 really should be an option fits pretty well for Virginia. Even if we don't get the drying on the fall, once we get to temperatures of about 40 degrees, the moisture holding capacity of that air becomes very limited. And so I encouraged foreigners to shock the system now, keep the grain cool over the winter months and then finish the dried and spring. And if you look at again, may conditions probably you're going to get pretty close to what Virginia as 56 degrees, 60% relative humidity. Again, dries the roughly that 13.5% moisture and does it in about 40 days. So certainly, I think natural air drying is an option for Virginia. Once we started looking at adding supplemental heat, there's different options. Most of these I'll refer to as high temperature in bin dryers. Some of the systems will have the stirring devices or Augurs and, um, so that we're constantly mixing the grain, it's important that we be mixing the grain because will, when we add heat, we end up with a lower equilibrium moisture content. Which means then that we're going to end up dry to o moisture content likely lower than what we would prefer. A lot of the NBN drying systems using their temperature of about a 160 degrees and will be very usable and efficient operating system. There's only one company that I'm aware of that does the bomb sweep auger. What they do is run the heated air through the bottom, wants the grain rise to the desired moisture content. They have a sweep auger that'll run around lifting the grain out of that man and putting into a separate band typically for cooling. And again, a very efficient operation works while it evolved, typically about a 160 degrees. One of the things to keep in mind as you're sizing these systems is that the maximum drying rate typically is going to be corn depth of about 60 feet as we add more corn. And then you can use the band as a holding bad blot. You end up sacrificing airflow in doing that because the fans having to move air through greater depth. And so the DR1 speed in bushels per hour ends up slowing down some. Typically though, when people are thinking of high temperature dryers, they're probably thinking another column dryer, something similar to what's shown on the left side or the slide. Lots of different options available. A lot of relatively new designs that are being utilized to improve energy efficiency, reduce drying flaws, and maintain the quality of the hard. Some of them, as I indicated on the left side there using Stage temperatures on the wet grain, they might be using temperatures 220 to 240 degrees. As it dries. The lower section may operate at a lower temperature. They may run that at, at a 180 to 220 degrees. For that final portion. Many of the dryers today are, are mixing the grain because even though we're only talking. Add a column with that might be 15 inches. So grounds, we're still going to end up with a moisture and temperature variation across that, that drying column. So this one to show in green Turner inverter where it's actually taking the corn is on the inside of the platinum and moving or shifting it to the outside and the platinum. And there's a lot of variations on how they're doing that mixing. But all of that improves the grain quality and the energy efficiency because they will it run a little higher temperature. So anyone that is considering purchasing and dryer, I really recommend that they will purchase one that has some of these features. There's one drier out there that I'm aware of that uses two metering roles to accomplish that variation. The metering role next to the inside of the column is removing the grain much more rapidly than, than the outside. Again so that we get more uniform drying, more gentle drying occurring. Another feature that I really encourage people to look at is what is called Back in Boolean or some type of he reclaim on the pooling portion of the dryer. Many of the tower drier shown on the right will have that feature. Many of the horizontal dryers are incorporating some type of that option available. We'll see about a 20% increase in energy efficiency by capture in that, that cooling HI. So rather than pushing the he, the air out through the cooling section, as we've done for years, more probably the majority of the systems today by using some type of suction system so that the air goes from the outside through the corn into the central platinum area, then gets heated and moved up into the drying portion of the dry. And greatly improves both the quality of the corn because we don't have hot journals. All of a sudden, he had with coal there. The last type of drier than I'm going to refer to is the called the mixed flow dryer. Some refer to it as a ranch style drier. And this typically will be a very energy efficient dryer and maintains the quality because the corn is constantly flowing down and alternating between the unexposed directly to the heat and being away from the he. Typically this dryer, we'll use a little lower air flow rate. Most of the platinum type com dryers are probably running. 70 to 90 cfm per bushel of holding capacity. Most of the max flow dryers or down in about 45 cubic foot of air per minute per bushel of holding capacity, which improves the energy efficiency. Frequently get aslo which one is the best and as long as a dry is incorporating these features, we don't see a lot of difference either in the form quality or in the energy consumption. So we're seeing a lot more of the mixed flow dryers mean use. But we're also pretty similar in energy consumption. Plates way in this style of driving versus apply them drier with heat reclaim and those new features. Now I'm gonna shift gears and talk a little bit about storage. And this visual I put together for Mars decoder, the northern states. The blue line is our average monthly temperature. And unfortunately or fortunately for us, are low, ends up being in January and we're saving about seven degrees above 0. If I looked at the Virginia temperatures, you're probably gonna be hitting somewhere between 3040 degrees as your average long. So one of the things that I encourage them northern folks to do is to aerate the grain, bring the temperature down to just below freezing in that 20 to 30 degree temperature range. Because we can actually kill many insects if we hold it there, overwinter at that temperature. Without that option, there's still gonna be benefits so that you make for cooling the green. As you can see on here, optimum temperatures for insects and spoilage is in that 70, that roughly 90 degree, why call it window, we get below 70 degrees and the 15-17 eating Ray-Ban, insect reproduction is renews. So there's even considerable benefit to cool in the grain. And just getting it down to that temperature range, we get below 50 degrees. And we're actually able to be cool enough that any insects that are their own army. And so we're not chilling the insects, but they're not doing any damage. And so I really encourage people to quickly cool again as much as they can. Get it out in that 30 to 50 degree temperature range. And just that should be the long-term goal. In the northern states. We bring the temperature back up in the spring, typically the 35-40 because we're aerating the grain to remove some of the soldiers eating. That occurs during the spring. For Virginia. I think the goal should be always try to stay in that 3040 to 50 degree temperature range by operate in the system. And that may mean running the fans just at night. This is a visual that's been around for ages, but it really I think, emphasizes how critical and important controlling that grain temperature is 80 degrees. It was right at the peak for both insects, animal. And just by bringing the temperature down below 60, the awards at 50 degrees makes a world of difference. And the success of our storage. Again, for those that like numbers rather than those temperature bands. The research has been done over the years looking at that in insect activity, what the impact is of holding the grain at different temperatures. And again, if you get it down in that 50 degree and under, we're actually able to put the insects the sleep. There's been research done looking at how long we can store the gray. And some of that research has been done looking at the rate of respiration. I really say it comes down to looking at, at we, corn, et cetera, on all of the cereal grains. There's slight differences, but they pretty close together. So early on in my career, I took all the research that had been done, averaged it together, and created this table. And it shows how important temperature and moisture content are to maintaining storage quality. And the one that I emphasize again is how important temperature is. If we happen to have lunches, pick 17% moisture corn. We go down the 17 along the left side there. We come across, if we're at 70 degrees, it says we have about 45 days of allowable storage time. We need to get a dry, we need to do something in less than 40. Days are, will have quality deterioration. But just changing the temperature from 1760, take says frown 45 days up to 75 days. So frequently I'll get questions about, well, doesn't natural air drying or better at one temperature, wouldn't warm temperatures be a benefit to us? Well, yes and no. It does increase the moisture holding capacity of there, but it also greatly speeds up the respiration and spoilage that is occurring. And so I typically disk or age. We're trying to do natural air drying when we're looking at, at temperatures exceeding an average of 60 degrees. And even maybe 50 degrees is preferable. But it is a tool that I use a lot more guys end up with, let's say porn that is at 20% moisture for summaries and then more stating that 60 degrees. What's my allowable storage time while it shows us very quickly that we need to do something in a short period of time or we're going to have spoiled grain. Some of the things that will affect that number or the storability. Anytime we have cracked, kernels broke and immature drain, anything that's affecting the integrity of that current will generally is going to cut the storage life considerably. Task Wade is a good indicator of storability because it is an indication typically whether we've reached maturity or not, whether we have the quality and that kernel to store it. And there are variations. My variety. And so whether you're using those tables that I just showed you to try to predict how long that we have the stored grain. We gotta remember we're working with the biological product. Each year is different and that spans, in fact, the storage of grain. I debated whether to leave this enter or take it out. Hopefully, most people are familiar with, with moisture migration. If we were to harvest the corn, stick it in the bin at 60 degrees and then outside temperatures pool from 60 down to 40. The outside walls then are going to be cooler. The grain next to those walls being cooler than air saddles do the bottom, displacing the air in the middle and pushes that up. It's labeled as warm, moist air. Because, or let's just say we're setting at 65% relative humidity in that air. As the air comes in contact with the cooler rain at the top surface. What happens is that relative humidity increases and eventually will frequently get two dew point. And so the moisture that is deposited in that top area. And so we can start out with the end, all dry grain. But if we're not cooling that, that bend down, we'll end up with with high moisture grain and Christine and spoilage up on the top surface. And the way that we prevent that is by using an aeration system to pool the grain as the outdoor temperatures cool down. Rain as a wonderful insulator. This is Sean, North Dakota winters. So we got a snowstorm law and on the guys all bundled up against the cold. And yet that little bug in there, he's as toasty as can be because grain is a wonderful eat saying. And it has a lot of insulating properties. And so if we're not mechanically cooling the grain with an aeration system, it will sit at warm temperatures and that may be conducive for enzymatic activity. In the spring and summer. We're also going to have temperature variations. Now. The air is going up along the bin perimeter, being pulled down in the center will see a moisture increase again, maybe four or five feet below the top surface. But this is what I call self limiting. Because as the grand winds up, we no longer have the temperature difference and we don't increase the moisture content. So generally that moisture content in prese he has less than a half a percentage point. So if you go back to recommendations that were out there and probably sixties and seventies, they all said Cool and rain in the fall, warm the green in the spring. And I'll still see some of that recommendation show up once in a while. The current thinking is that we leave the grain cool. There's so many benefits that come from keeping the grain pool that we no longer recommend one, I mean the great. And you can look to the research and that's what it is showing us, is that we're better off having a little spot that increases in moisture content will not bad, but then keeps the whole grain mask pool. We have last insect infestation, we have less other spoilage browse by keeping the brain pool. So aeration is critical. Frequently people will ask questions as to how long do I need to run that fan? We use this is rough equation to calculate that. You take the number 15 and you divide it by whatever the air flow rate is that's going through the ban. Many of the aeration systems are set up for about two-tenths of a cfm per. So in about 75 hours, we can totally change the temperature that you're a maths. So in about three days of fan operation where we're cooling that your aim. We don't need a huge fan to do that. A very common bin size today that is being bill is a 42 diameters somewhere even bigger than that, might be a 36th sidewall or grained apps. So we're looking at about 40 thousand bushels. This example happens to be a soybeans justified whores fan will give us the air flow rate that we need. So on a smaller men, frequently we can get by with maybe a horse and a half or two wars fan. And that will adequately cool that there. For those that want to get a little bit more detail. On my website is a link to this fan selection program that the University of Minnesota developed a number of years ago. A very nice tool to size fans or to see what kind of air flow rate you have. There's over 200 different fans that are listed in this program. I like to stress that return on investment. I don't expect you to see all the numbers that are on the slide. But I went through and looked at sizing. Again, 42 foot diameter ban of corn, figured the same five horsepower Shan. And even if we were to run that iteration, fan can complete cycles during the year to manage the grain temperature. With false and electricity. That's less than a penny per bushel for the whole year to control insects and more. I doubt that you're going to find that return on investment that's going to be better than that. A couple of different common questions that I get. It is import into level the bands. That's what's gonna give us the most uniform airflow through the man boss that P tends to be the area that warms up and causes a stroke. Certainly when I shot the vans with it's foggy raining. So no, we don't need the fans running continuous. In order to accomplish are either drying with a natural air drying system or aeration to control the grain temperature. I strongly recommend covering the fans when we're not using them. Keep snow and passed out prevents the warm, moist air going in through that, man. It's surprising if we leave the fan on covered. You get wind blowing into that and we're aerating the VM. And so I really strongly recommend putting covers on the fans. When I talk about managing stored grain, I say that that is the dirac with it. Maria scale. We need to understand the fundamentals of grain storage and then apply those. And so we're probably going to be monitoring temperature, moisture, insects, looking for any indication of spoilage. I really recommend every two weeks and found the grand is cool for winter storage. And for us. And of course that ends up being temperatures down below freezing. Guys don't like to climb the bends when it's really cold outside. And I'm okay with that. Once we get it cool down, maybe every two to three weeks is adequate. But once it starts, bar mean again in the spring and summer or back every two weeks. And managing, typically, we're we're lucky that temperature located for any moisture issues and monitoring for insects. There are a number of tools that are available for us to, to use as temperature cables. And I'm a strong supporter of temperature cables and they can be just a manual read or they can get very sophisticated. But the key point on ass is what I've written across the bottom. Technology does not replace management. We still need to be checking that band. We still need to be monitoring the condition of that grain. And then allowing the sensors and the controllers to be our our friend and help us in doing that job. But they don't replace us. And I think this is about the last slide and I wanted to emphasize there's the little bit that I am a strong supporter of temperature cables, but we need to be realistic about what they're telling us. Yeah, a Ben, Sean, three cables and it looks like we're checking that whole men while I've got an X through that. Because as I indicated earlier, Rain is a good insulator. Just to feed a grain is more insulation value than what most of the well insulated buildings out. So we get more than a couple feet away from the cable and we may not know what's taking place. So they're doing a wonderful job of spot checking in our bins. We're not going to know what's happening 20 feet below the grain surface without the cable. But it doesn't tell us the whole story either. So that brains make, did they end? Like everybody else? I do have a website. The easiest way to find is just do a search for India's YOU grain drying and storage. There's some presentations up there, some literature. And you're welcome to it. So that brings me to the end and I'd be happy to try to answer some questions. Thank you so much, Dr. Hello. Thanks for joining us. Excellent presentation then that I know we've got quite a few questions that have been submitted and so we'll go ahead and get started on that dot telling you you had a really interesting child, a bear about aeration cooling time. And I think a lot of farmers don't have a clue. I think they just go off what they think. But I'm sure it's written law fan. I'm sure the literature with a band has a cool and I'll cubic feet per minute per bushel. But if a farmer has a fan and a little strong and how does he what does he do to figure his cubic feet per minute promotional Pokemon fan? Yeah, unfortunately, most of the fans do not come with a table. If you ask, you may be able to find one that will list airflow rate at various static pressures or resistance there flow. But the best tool, Nazi or if I come back up to that again, for fans, is to go to the website and utilize this tool. You put in what the type of brain is, what the band diameter grain depth is. And then you can actually go in and select a fan. And if your fan manufacturer doesn't have numbers listed, there's some variation between companies, but not a lot. If you're looking at a fine wars axial or how their diet fad, whether you use soup up or a GSI or whoever, probably isn't going to make that much difference. But if you stick that fan on the ban by selecting it in that program, then it'll give you a table that shows for various depth what you're expected airflow, the total air flow is, and what the air flow rate would be. And that's generally what I use as I'm working with someone. The transfer from what the company has in their table to ban. Really requires that kind of Priuses. And so that's what I would recommend in a couple of things I'd like to ask you, but the first one is, is that some portions of our state or had been in real drought situations. So we're going to have pretty study corn and probably a lot of unfilled kernels and all the different things you have with drowsy corn. Tell us a little bit about what you would think about as far as putting that in the ban. Some things to watch or how to take care of it, maybe even do an extra step of cleaning. Some ideas there. All you've touched on and I think several things that are important with, with corn that is experienced you out. You're going to see Colonel variation in as grain goes into any container. So as we're filling the ban or even in a truck, the grain will segregate or separate depending on the size and density. So we can get more of the smaller kernels in the center. More of the foreign material. If it's like weed seeds, it'll tend to go the center. A lot of the large kernels are the trash stuff will go to the outside. So that creates some variations within the men we need to be aware of as we're, we're story. Certainly, depending on the amount of kernels that were working with. I guess. I'm a supporter of green cleaning. But it sometimes gets to be a challenge as two, how are we separating out stocks and trash that easily can be separated? Or when we try and look at the size of kernels, that becomes more difficult to segregate. Eat on an even on a normal year, we have moisture varies. Within a cop. One, we have a drought year. You're going to see more of that moisture variation. So we add kernel size variation, we have moisture variation. And so as we're checking moisture contents, it's important to actually check maybe more than what you would in a, in a quote, typical or normal year. The other thing that comes to mind is that anytime we have stressed kernels, we tend to have shorter storage life. So we'll typically talk about making sure that the grain is maybe even a point lower in moisture content as we're trying to store that, that corn. We run into drought corn, depending on where your ad and North Dakota fairly routinely and our experiences man that it stores fairly well. It's just that we have kernels that are smaller. More variation. That means that we probably can't store as long as we would in a normal year. Thank you. Hi. And any other questions? Robbing? Other question, Dr. hello, bang. My name's Trent Jones. To Thank you so much for being here this morning. Wonderful presentation. I've had a couple questions submitted throughout the week from producers who weren't able to join us this morning. Just kind of piggyback off of a little bit of what you just talked about. Where you were suggestion, suggestion that finds and smaller seeds, weed seeds are going to be congregate newness in the center of a tank. One of the questions that was submitted is, do you suggest the use of spreaders to distribute finds in the tank or do you prefer allowing the fines to build up in the middle and then corr The tanked fill out those fines. Any opinion there? I do have. And I got it. Always be a little bit careful that I don't irritate all of the equipment manufacturers, but I state it this way that I have not really heard a distributor spreader. That does a very good job. It may not deposit the fines and foreign material in the center, but it doesn't end up distributing them evenly throughout the band either. So AMU supporter failing the ban and then Corey The Band or taking some grey now to try to remove some of that foreign material. Just a even as a regular storage management strategy. I hear farm we're saying over and over and over again that they always had storage problems and fell. They started what they call quarrying the bin. They'll fill it right to the, to the peak. But then take out a couple three loads filament, they kind of level at top surface, pull out the finds out of the metal. And the research says that we should be doing that periodically as the bin is filled. So you fill the bad and the order and you take out a little bit, you fail the Band, Apple, you take out a little bit. I'm not aware of anybody that really doing that. Typically, like I say, they'll fill it to the peak and then unload. And that's my preference. That way we know the fines and staffer in the metal. We know that we're getting a lot of that pulled out as we call it in the bin. And that's what I recommend. Thank you. That's a great explanation. Can one last item or just a comment that we talked about, aeration and the cooling fans. A lot of times people mistake that they are actually doing some dry with that particular fan. And so I just want to re-emphasize that the items that you've covered earlier with the CFPB dams for dry natural air drying is quite a bit different from aeration. Yeah. And and I typically will if I'm doing a drying presentation, span a little more time talking about that. There's a huge difference in the amount of air flow. As we go from two tenths of a cfm per bushel up to 100 cfm per bushel or more. We got. Not a man may be from a two horsepower to enchanting horsepower. Kind of a rule of thumb that I use is that the double layer flow takes somewhere between four to five times the horsepower. And so yeah, we were shifting from small fans, a huge fans. And some will say, well, I'm only taking off a couple points of moisture. The reality is we still named the big fans. With the small fans, we might need to run the fan for four or five months rather than 11 the morning to get the dry. So if there is a big difference between air drying and controlling the grain temperature, and even the type of fans makes quite a difference in some of what I have up on my website or a couple of presentations put together that really start looking at the different types of fans. Again, going back to the sixties, maybe even seven days. A lot of our bins were, were shallow man's, maybe 15. They deem fee the and we did a lot of natural error drowning with propeller axial type fans. Today, just shifting up to 20 foot orange depth means it would probably shift to a centrifugal fan. And in order to get the kind of workflow that we want and it makes a difference which kind of centrifugal fan. So if you've got an interest in that area, fair amount of information on my website that I encourage you to look out. I've got a question. This is Stephanie Remote Check. Would that calculator that you showed with that help you understand how often and for how long you should run your fans to maintain the moisture but not too dry it. Yeah, the if we're just controlling grain temperature using that equation, 15, that's the way if you divide by 15, divided by the air flow rate gives you an estimate, a fan time. And generally about 72 to 75 hours is all that's required. I constantly have people that turn the fan on and just leave it run. And there's nothing wrong with that except that it's fast and that's a lot of money. And so that gives you a good indication of how frequently or how long to run the fan. And the typical recommendation is whenever we're seeing average outdoor temperatures be ten to 15 degrees cooler than the grain temperature. Then we run the iteration cycle to cool the grain down. And that then allows us to gain the benefit of the cooler storage environment. Okay. Thank you. Dr. elevating. This is robbing longus. Again. Another question we had from a producer was asking about the concern if they were using particularly back in type system about static electricity. Where are there any concerns or certain materials that maybe create more or less static electricity in their reason for concern was due to effect that most of these storage and drying operation, you do have some type of propane fuel source that's that's located close to that. Any comment on that? I guess I'm really not familiar. Static electricity being a problem. What that said, I know it's been an issue that that has been brought up in different times and I think that most of the systems are set up with some metal pipe that's probably lay it on the ground. And so we're we're in essence grounding the system while we're using it. But I like I said, I'm not aware that it's a significant problem, but I don't have a lot of expertise with you. I thank you. Any other questions or comments from the folks at our joint necess Morning? Dr. hello bang. I got a few more of them or try and take two of these up in St. and combine them into one of these, relate more to grain prior to its arrival at a storage tank on what she maybe advice and comments on it. You talked a little bit about brain cleaning. Are there any opportunities for grain cleaning friar to storage or drying in a tank? The questions are, Have you found any value and perforated screen shields on clean grain elevator and the tailings elevator, or under the combine orders for these two elevators. I've used perforated shields on both elevators. They found they clog up too quickly and are essentially use this. And then what about some sort of cleaning our screen cleaning device on Combine grain Tang discharge order. Is there anything out there that you have found that works on cleaning the grain somewhat before it gets to the grayer. I guess I'll comment on a couple of other things ever raise. The perforated tubing on an auger or conveyor is been around for for many, many years. If you use them frequently, you'll get a little bit of foreign material that comes through that perforation. But it really isn't doing what I had seen, at least much of the job of actually cleaning the grain. And so typically in conveying and typically, and in handling that grain, it's difficult to just what a perforated screen on there and expect it to do a very good job. Definitely support the, the concept of cleaning the grain. A lot of it will start at the Combine and just making sure that the mind is set appropriately so that the combined can do get rid of as much of the trash and informed material as it can. And then the rotary cleaners certainly function well. On the unfortunate thing is that conveying capacity is typically renews and doing that. So I I usually make the recommendation that the do as good a job as you cannot combine and then evaluate the cleanliness of that brain as it arrives at the bn. And the recommendation would be to run it through a planar. The reality is very few guys do. Most of the time. It's just going to get conveyed into the band and the band will be poured to remove some of those fines. So not a big supporter of the perforated to weigh in. Make sure the combine is that while the do its job and then evaluate based on what you're seeing. As I've enjoyed this, a lot of good information. We have off change gears a little bit. We have a question on soy beans. If you put beans on a ban of a fairly good size bin and they're down in that 11, 12% moisture range. Or the ANY concern store no-till beans long-term. And I'm talk and sharable years that that would be potential pitfall to that. Know, as long as we're down in the moisture range that you're referring to, soybeans will store. Well, we're doing some research at silly at our proposed a University looking at soybeans because there was it has been limited long-term storage recommendations. And as long as the grain is dry laws, the soybeans are in that 11, 12% moisture range. They should store fine. The one issue that we're a little concerned about was soybeans that we don't have cereal grains, is that we're also storing y up and wondering what happens as we look at the quality of the awhile. What we're finding so far, we've only done one year storage. But as long as the moisture content and temperature or control the oil quality will stay there. But if you start storing and warm temperatures, sarin and it'll little higher moisture content. Free fatty acids and some of the other issues with soybean oil can become impacted. So right now the market doesn't look at those parameters as we're dealing with soybeans. But just from a true quality standpoint, I think it is important for us to make sure that they're dry in pool if we're looking at long-term storage. Alright. Any other questions or comments is Mormons? Ravi, I've got one last question. If we've got time for it. Yes, I attract Hi, this is another one that was submitted. I find that cutting at high moisture, corn pulls off more bees wings from the cow. Generally dislodge from the kernel after being run through the dryer. I'd like to try and pull out the bees wings, the back of the boot on my dry elevator leg, I'll find that the air flow from the buckets tends to naturally flow to allow the bees wings at that time. And should it makes sense to vacuole, vacuum off bees wings at this juncture. Dr. hello bang. Are you aware of any kind of systems out there that would be able to pull out those bees wings from the system at that point? I'm not familiar with anything that does, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think the observation is accurate that as it's dried, we can see more bees wings release. I know there's one option that some of the farmers are using is to make sure that they're running the fan as they're filling the bin. That way it blows out some baboons, wings as the grain is being conveyed into, into storage. But anything that would pneumatically do the same thing certainly would have some appeal to it. But I'm not aware of a product that actually does that. Hey, sir, I've got another question. So we grow winter wheat and barley here when we're storing, that is when the temperatures are increasing and decreasing. Do you have recommendations for insect control and those types of conditions and maybe any recommendations on insecticides for use in, in that type of system. A number of comments come to mind. Well, first off is we're gone into warmers story, period. It's critical that we be controlling the moisture content of the grain, making sure that it's dry enough to be stored during the morning climate. And so in general with wheat, we typically talking 13% moisture kind of being the upper limit from an insect standpoint. Anything that we can do to keep that grain pool. And some of what I'm typically recommending is to be concerned about the model solar heat gain in the top of the band. And so I'm really starting to encourage ventilating the headspace or top of the band. Either naturally like we would then fanatic or preferably even putting a fan to remove some of that e. Which then helps to, to minimize the amount of warming that's taking place in the top of the Been Making sure that we're covering the fan so that the when and the warm areas and going through the Been doing whatever we can to keep that grain as close as possible. And then the other thing is any grain that's going to be stored in warmer temperatures. In general, we recommend a insecticide be applied. And there's a number of different products out there. And I'm an engineer, not an entomologist. They're an expert in that area. But I keep reminding people that there's a difference between the Campbell again and the insecticides and we're using the hearing treatments are really done too. Try to read Pali insects. They don't kill the insects, but they repel insects, will drain, that will be stored into the warmer weather. I think plenty then a grain treatment would would be advisable in I don't have a specific product that I recommend and I think there's, you know, you need to make sure that you're using something that is approved for the end use of that product. But I think there are several good products available. Alright, great questions, great discussion in any last questions or comments this morning before we finish up. Alright, well, we really appreciate you joining us, Dr. hello, bang. Excellent presentation. And I know that we certainly have quite a few producers here and eastern part of Virginia and throughout Virginia that be utilized grain storage as well as some some agribusiness greenery facility. So hopefully this will be a great resource for us here. We really appreciate you joining us and taking the time to present this and answer some of our questions are small and you're very welcome. Thank you again for everyone that joined us this morning. And also thanks to Dr. grosso for helping us link up with Dr. hello, bang. Thank you so much for that. We'd really appreciate the guidance. Lastly, for those that are still on the line, if you have a few moments, we just asked for you to please follow the link to our evaluation and give us some comments or feedback if there's topics of discussion that you'd like more information about or something that you notice in that have a concern all the form with we'd be glad to reach out and get some information on that. So please take a few moments to do that for us. And in last couple of comments next week, we hope to have Dr. Michael Flexner join us in and provide a weed update, mostly focused on some of our herbicide resistant weeds, especially those like palmer Amaranth, and now being good time to try to pull some of those rogue escape plants. So join us next week if that's a topic of interest to you. And then finally, we would just like to thank all the agents that make this effort possible, might brought us and Caroline and King George County, Stephanie Rommel check, and Westmoreland county, lower maxi may in Hanover County and Trent Jones in North humble in Lancaster County and myself for IP Longest. So thank you all for all your help. That effort would be possible without it. Thanks again for joining us, Dr. hello bang. We really appreciate it. Glad that we had the opportunity to share with you and hear these great remarks this morning. So thank you all. Please be safe and, and hope everyone has a great harvest season.