Farmers are worried about getting corn planted in the field, but A Grain Quality Specialist at ISU, says you should be worrying about the grain stored in your bins.
The man who cares more about grain in the bin than in the field is ISU?s Dr. Charles Hurburgh. Hurburgh says this storage year did not start off well and it is not ending well.
“Last fall was a very difficult time for getting grain ready for long term storage. The reason was that the temperatures were warm, and the relative humidity’s were high right into November.” Hurburgh explains, “The key piece of information to watch is the dew point. You can’t get the corn any colder than the dew point. We had 50,60, and 70 degree temperatures even in January and February.”
So, run the fans when the dew point is low. He also says big bins don?t help.
“There is always the issue of non-uniformity. The bigger the bin the more non-uniformity issues you have. Also, traditionally producers have taken bin temperatures manually. I’m told that even a small percentage of the bigger bins are being constructed with electronic temperature monitoring systems in them.”
Hurburgh has another inconvenient truth. Quite a bit of this grain is going to have to stay in the bin until 2018.
“We have the remember that with the carry over amounts we have. Some of the 2017 grain will have to be in reasonable condition in 2018. This years math will tell you that.”
