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Post by kenmb on Sept 5, 2023 7:50:17 GMT -6
Finished the wheat, most of it came off above 14.5% except last day. Fans with rockets were doing 1/2% to 3/4% a day drying using around 1 cfm/bu of air since we got some warm days. Got all wheat moved out of air bins into flat storage bins.
Stuck the combine into standing mustard right beside the wheat I finished and was 10.8% on a couple of acres. I had swathed a round but plants were too dry and brittle in 95% of the field so left it to straight cut. Started swathed mustard and around 6%. Got a 5 hour rain day yesterday that amounted to 0.15" so a day to fix some stuff.
To Radars point about chaff, I really like the harvest services airfoil and their plastic bottom sieve. Been running an airfoil for many years in 1660 and 2388, did some years with factory top sieve in the 2388 before switching to airfoil and would not go back. Put the plastic bottom sieve in a couple years ago and noticed good improvement in mustard and flax for cleaning and not overloading returns.
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Post by garyfunk on Sept 5, 2023 7:54:52 GMT -6
@oatking,
I've never had oats as low as 60 ... in almost 40yrs of farming. And I am not sure if I ever had a full quarter of canola hit 60, lol.
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Post by garyfunk on Sept 5, 2023 8:01:26 GMT -6
Finished up the barley tonight so now it’s just canola left. Not sure is it’s ready yet. Might give it a few days and get some other things done. Our grain cart driver has to go back to school on Tuesday so I’m glad we got all the cereals done before that. He is planning to miss a few days to help out. So how did you like the Oreana? Got a seed grower here trying out Durango, sounds promising to replace Austensen, stronger straw. |
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Post by meskie on Sept 5, 2023 9:25:06 GMT -6
It was our highest yielding barley this year but that field is always one of our best. We had austenson barley on that field a few years ago that ran over 100 with 10-15bu on the ground cause it got snowed on the end of September. Connect was only a couple bushel less but the rain lottery might have been part of that.
Short straw and easy to thresh on the oreana. Weighed up good also.
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radar
Junior Member
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Post by radar on Sept 5, 2023 9:25:27 GMT -6
Good day Northernfarmer, Thinking of drying Canola in years past, our wet bins are 4000 bushels and I try to empty the dryer out after each bin , sometimes I'll top up as I dry , But to be honest I really don't go inside the dryer to clean out any chaff , last time was years ago when we had a smoke show and crawled in and up to check if there was hot canola..Our chaff builds up in the wet bins and the canola can start to stick and heat quickly, Not much chaff in our dryer, we combine with probably higher wind then most, we use harvest service chaffers and bottom sieves..One thing I have found with the dryer is I changed the orfice to a smaller one and when I start up then dryer I take both the pressure and the temp up slowly and have the meter rolls running ,, probably takes 10-15 mins to get it up to 190 degrees, our smoke shows used to start as we were firing up , not so much as we are running,,I like to not stop the dryer till the bin is done ,It's a long enough day..I bought 2 extra triers for the dryer but haven't had the chance to get them on yet. Hope some of these thoughts help you out..
First off I have to clarify my wording as my explanation was too vague as I see now. So when I said ducting I should have said the actual column of grain on either side of the central air plenum. So for example when drying canola and one reaches into the triangle openings on the outside of the dryer as its operating ( never reaching into the very bottom row of openings any distance ... that meter roll is down there turning ! ) and feeling the canola in this case for whats going on with temperature as one example or chaff pockets. So back to my comment about chaff building up more so on the door end of the drier, I mean within the column of canola as it hits the door end wall and I assume that happens partly because the top leveling auger is dragging canola to the door end and the chaff tends to float on top and more of it ends up all in a heap against that end wall of those grain columns. Also its been commented in the past that in theory anyway that if chaff floating in the air gets sucked into the fan, that ( depending on the burner type so the claim is ) can get lit up and the "tendency" is for the chaff within the center plenum will fly to the door end and then into the grain through the internal triangle ducts.
That brings me to your technique of emptying out the dryer, that right there empties out all that chaff that accumulates in those pockets of high chaff volume and yes Vertec even says empty out the dryer. Do I, I don't want to because of the crappy setup we have its a whole time consuming operation to start all over again and take back undried canola that ran through the dryer as it can't dry the first few hundred bushels as its sitting in the cooling tiers or would come out way too hot if one started it off as a batch dryer to have the whole dryer be drying. I don't have a way of bringing the product back into the dryer to circulate other then emptying out the "dry bin" when the canola comes close to dry and then back into the wet bin again. Grain elevators would never do something like this as they would never get anywhere production wise so I assume their dryers don't build up chaff like these vertec units do.
I have had the beginnings of a smouldering fire start a couple of times with canola and luckily caught it as per white coming out and stinking, shut it down and started digging with gloves on and found a hot ball on the door end of the grain column. Of course I never knew how it got started, was it from chaff going through the burner or did the built up chaff just self combust. I know long ago there were kits to get triangle shaped screens to stick into the plenum side holes as that was supposed to help with holding back chaff from the fan that was lit up getting into the drying wall of grain, no idea if it actually worked. I can see with a raging flame off the start that is trying to get the plenum up to temp, depending on the burner style as well that could have some radical things happening as you found fires then were the worst upon initial startup. I also agree with chaff building up in the wet bin if emptying down partly, then filling and back and forth like that with never truly emptying out the bin, that and never emptying the dryer cause chaff issues ( aside from the grain in the bin starting to heat ).
As to the actual air plenum and chaff and grain that gets into it, it seem that filling the dryer I feel is the largest issue as to bouncing grain as it falls down the internal grain wall ducting and will bounce into the air plenum. I close off all the air slides I can and run the fan at a part speed when doing the initial fill of the dryer to try and limit the amount of grain the finds its way inside but seems impossible to not have a little bit get in and its a lovely job crawling through the cooling layers and sweeping or vacuuming out the crap at the end of a season. I try to use the dryer as little as possible and the more years I don't have to fire it up at all the better ( again a horrible setup with extreme labour to get anything dried and put into bins where it will be stored )
A couple of friends have added onto their dryers and really increased the capacity although I am not sure if they added any more cooling tiers or not. One of them built a wooden structured roof that sat up above the dryer and a few years ago it lit up on fire, not sure how that happened but it did and the fire department got that out and lots of water ended up in the top of the dryer in the process right into the canola, I don't think that was a lot of fun dealing with the product after that. The top drag auger drooped like a wet noodle I believe, it got that hot and damaged the top rim of the dryer and had to buy a used one as parts to fix it up. He then built a new roof with all metal construction so that wouldn't happen again.
Interesting that you have so many problems, I don't like hauling lots of dockage so my wind when we combine is really high we sold the cows so we don't feed the screening anymore .. maybe that's some of the difference ?? , I know the direction of the wind blowing makes a difference on how all the chaff accumulates around the dryer, our prevailing wind is from the north-west , we faced our dryer hitch south, whether that makes any difference on fires, I don't know. I know the north end where we unload doesn't have much chaff on the ground ..another thing we did was flip the leveling auger belt and we fill right on top of the door end instead of on the fan end ,,, maybe that makes big difference, as when we had fires they were always on the fan end  ? .... We use our dryer almost every year and lots of years every bushel goes thur it..some times off the chart canola we put thur twice.
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Post by victory on Sept 5, 2023 9:53:54 GMT -6
Finished combining our swathed Esma barley on Saturday night just before a light rain Sunday morning! That has got to be one of the better feelings as a farmer, being able to relax because the grain is in the bin and not getting rained on. The barley is about 48 lbs/bu, but the yield monitor had some pretty crazy numbers on it that will make up for the lighter than average bushel weight. Might be a little harder to market but there is lots of time to think about that yet. Just swathed my neighbor's canola yesterday. Looks pretty good. Lots of canola being swathed here now. Can't believe how many of you guys have already combined canola. Weather looks fairly promising for the next two weeks here, so that should put a big dent in the work of harvest!  |
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MBRfarms
Junior Member
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Post by MBRfarms on Sept 5, 2023 13:14:55 GMT -6
Wrapped up wheat last week, feel a little bad posting how good it was when so many are having poor crops. But only had 1 piece do under 90bu. Was barely knee high and standing perfect and almost perfectly dry, easily the highest bu/hr we've ever ran. Dad had some fun trying to keep up in the trucks.
Should be into the canola in the next week with beans coming in right behind. Both look quite good, the wheat looked the worst all year but ran 20bu better than we thought it would. We'll see if that scale translates to the other crops.
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Post by Oatking on Sept 5, 2023 14:38:29 GMT -6
Wrapped up wheat last week, feel a little bad posting how good it was when so many are having poor crops. But only had 1 piece do under 90bu. Was barely knee high and standing perfect and almost perfectly dry, easily the highest bu/hr we've ever ran. Dad had some fun trying to keep up in the trucks. Should be into the canola in the next week with beans coming in right behind. Both look quite good, the wheat looked the worst all year but ran 20bu better than we thought it would. We'll see if that scale translates to the other crops. That’s great to hear ! Always nice when high prices and bumper is used in the vocabulary at harvest!!! |
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Post by kevlar on Sept 5, 2023 16:00:15 GMT -6
Got rain a couple nights ago, about 3/10 then another shower last night. Only have about 30 acres of barley and it’ll be done, so we’re going again just now, about 16.8.
Going to try standing oats tomorrow, see how that goes, I wanted to swath them but 🤷♂️
Got good news and bad news. I’ve started dumping barley on the ground 😖, and we still have oats, wheat and canola to go. Do have a few bins lined up for later on, will shuffle some around, just too far to haul to from the combine. Not sure how the barley turned out so well, the best we’ve ever had, and with only 4 inches, but that puts it into perspective how bad it gets here when it’s wet.
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Post by garyfunk on Sept 5, 2023 16:21:17 GMT -6
Ya, barley doesn't like it wet.
And it's going to be a banner year here too. Last two fields went north of 115. And we thought last year was good, this yr is easily surpassing it with a lot less straw .
I hope your dad signed up all of your barley for that 8 bucks you mentioned the other day, but in my limited amount of traveling this summer I really didn't see a whole lot of barley growing. So who knows where prices are going. 🤷♂️
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Post by northernfarmer on Sept 5, 2023 17:22:34 GMT -6
Another long post on my love/hate of using a dryer and the risk of fire for oilseeds for sure.
Radar, actually its surprising we never had more problems over the years as various people I know in this area have had everything from the small fire or smoulder happen like I did ( I never had flames coming out the side of the dryer, just the smoke in the spot where it was starting the process ) or an all out fire that destroyed the dryer and everything around it as a few people have had happen. I can't say for sure in all cases but oil seeds and the most common one up here being canola is high on the list of risky crops to dry in dryers that have that possibility due to design and chaff in the product coming around in from the fan and getting lit up from the burner or just self combusting. The problem is if someone isn't babysitting it all the time, that is usually how it gets away just as lets say you fired up your dryer and walked away those times it did start a fire shortly after, you would have come back to quite the mess. Any fall that is a crappy weather fall up here in the peace country, lots of dryers being used and its typical to hear of someone that had their dryer burn up as in a total loss.
By the way our dryer has a factory steel roof on it, unfortunately it was the early version where there is NO access into the top of the dryer if you can imagine, the roof would have to be partly disassembled to get inside the top. Its a good question if that hinders the drying process or not, they claimed not but it is very humid in that space up there but its also holding in the air flow and heat. Ours is a 5600 as I had not mentioned that aspect, also has had three different burner designs in it since new, the original black pipe unit that had holes drilled into the side of the pipe and the bottom pipe filled with rust blocking off the gas holes so that all went to crap in a short few years, then their updated stainless steel burner at the time which was vastly different but also a flame thrower, then a few years ago I got ... can't recall his name now from Manitoba to come out here and install one of his fancy cast style burners that gets mounted down in the throat of the fan housing and an updated fire eye and firing control box. I have not used it extensively since that was installed but I felt the pressure gauge after the regulator and modulating valve runs a lower pressure so assume it may consume a bit less gas for the btu's being put out. The claim is with this burner that its less prone ( or they may say no fires ) due to the burner itself lighting chaff but the combo of chaff in oil seeds can be a problem anyway. I wouldn't say we have more chaff in the canola then typical but there certainly is a bit and its that accumulative effect in the dryer as it starts building on the door end in our case with the direction of filling flow, the problem is its not moving down with the column of canola and why Vertec info says to empty the dryer like your doing. When I had that smouldering start, it was after days of drying and not emptying it out. Normally when I empty the dryer down with canola I will see a substantial amount of chaff towards the end of the process sitting there trying to feed out of the door end of the meter rolls confirming where its building up. That all goes back to the dryer design as I've never had an issue with barley or wheat as the chaff aspect is different and a fraction of what canola often has with bits of pod that are so light in weight. And again this just confirms that your emptying out the bin and the dryer completely and starting over again is the best policy !
So going back your dryer and how your filling it, definitely that is backwards from the original setup Vertec had in mind but I have heard of others doing that and hey, it works too. I think that would reduce the amount of chaff on your door end but increase it on the fan end instead. The way the internal fan ducting within the plenum is or from factory, its a fairly long tin square duct that reaches out into the plenum towards the door end and for a time that same company that was putting in these new style burners were cutting that whole duct out of there but then by the time I had a burner put in he was no longer feeling that modification was helping ( the theory was to get the grain temp even from end to end of the dryer by removing it ).
As a side note, if you happen to have a similar setup to my dryer as being on natural gas and the plumbing of a manual pressure regulator, then a pressure gauge, then a quarter turn shut off tap, then the electric gas shut off valve, manual modulating valve, second pressure gauge, quarter turn valve and then after that I think is where the orifice goes and then the piping takes a turn and goes into the dryer to the burner, same applies to the burner I have now to control the heat to let the modulating valve probe warm up. That second hand valve which is to the left of the modulating valve, that valve can be used to regulate the gas flow during the lighting process to hold back the gas volume to prevent so much of the otherwise flame thrower effect with the factory burners and having the temp shoot up so fast. In fact once I have lit the dryer the first time and its been operating and shut it down for the night ( yup, never emptied the dryer LOL ) I have no need to initially touch the modulating valve as I use that hand valve to control the flow and stand there and watch the pressure gauges and the temp and allow it to slowly build up plenum temp and will start the metering roll going after I have reached a reasonable temp and continue watching and adjusting that hand valve slightly to increase the gas flow as needed and then I will hear the modulating valve finally catch up and take over as its cutting back gas as the temp probe is up to temp and able to control the flow. That is why its wild otherwise at the start if the orifice is large enough for capacity and the modulating valve probe is cold and it thinks it needs to demand full gas !!! ... that never works out well as the high temp limit switch will shut it down, it did on ours anyway if being too aggressive with the gas. Using that second hand valve in line, that was due to having a vertec tech out long ago, probably had changed over the burner etc and saw what he did as my dad prior to that was constantly messing with screwing the modulating valve all the way down/out ... then try to start it up and then the flame goes out due to over temp or something else shuts off the dryer, constantly messing with that t handle on the modulating valve. Radar, you may have a completely different modulating system or be on propane and be different to operate then how this is set up.
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Post by victory on Sept 5, 2023 21:55:54 GMT -6
Hey northernfarmer, I also use that hand valve to limit how much propane the system can get on startup. Works good. I just leave that valve about 1/3 of the way open all the time.
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Post by northernfarmer on Sept 5, 2023 22:09:52 GMT -6
Hey northernfarmer, I also use that hand valve to limit how much propane the system can get on startup. Works good. I just leave that valve about 1/3 of the way open all the time.
I've done that too if I am having issues controlling the temp as I had to change out the original modulating valve and the replacement unit is larger and seems more finicky and so sometimes increasing the back pressure or another words its like changing to a smaller orifice can help but mostly I can leave it open once I establish a stable temp as long as I cut the regulated pressure back, that seemed to be a must to do that after that replacement modulating valve was installed, could no longer get the smaller valve unfortunately.
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Post by meskie on Sept 6, 2023 17:38:58 GMT -6
Invigor canola doing invigor canola things for us. Have yet to find another brand that does as good for us
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Post by victory on Sept 6, 2023 22:16:24 GMT -6
Hey meskie, what's the rest of the story?  |
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? .... We use our dryer almost every year and lots of years every bushel goes thur it..some times off the chart canola we put thur twice. 
