Resources

This U.S. Grains Council handbook is aimed at addressing three key concerns operations managers at grain warehouses and feed mills are often faced with when receiving imported corn: (1) moisture content at 14.5 percent, (2) high amounts of fines that make handling and storage more challenging, and (3) presence of mycotoxins. The practical solutions presented in this handbook address how to successfully manage these challenges from the perspective of the operations manager. 

In this article, Dirk Maier, professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, provides some basic safety guidance.

This article, the first in a series on grain elevators of the future, will focus on two key technologies and innovations that will affect the grain elevator of the future: information and communication technologies (ICT), and autonomous vehicles and transportation. 

This article discusses automatic grain receiving, sampling, grading, and smarter equipment maintenance. 

 This article focuses on real-time wireless monitoring and managing of stored grain quality. Future articles will focus on real-time tracking of inventory, lights out and hygienic operations, and digital services.

This article is about a grain aeration and management app which can help with air-grain moisture relationships, cooling aeration predictions, aeration weather forecasting, and more.

This app is intended to serve as an engineering tool for grain storage and aeration processes. It was jointly developed by the co-authors of this article representing the Grain Postharvest Group located at the Experimental Research Station of INTA Balcarce, Argentina, and the Post-Harvest Engineering and Feed Technology Group of the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative at Iowa State University.

This article teaches about stored grain fires with sections on self heating/thermal decomposition of stored grain, best practices, and containment for stored grain fires. 

In this article, learn about storing imported corn from the United States including a discussion of moisture and mold management, relative humidity and mold management, ambient and chilled aeration, fines and dust management, coring and un-peaking, cleaning and screening, and monitoring stored grain. 

S.L.A.M. stands for sanitation, loading, aeration, and monitoring. This acronym encompasses four areas of best practices for grain quality management.

This first article in this series focuses on temperature sensors and explores the number needed on a cable as well as cable placement to effectively monitor the quality of stored grain.

The number and placement of sensors, and the interpretation of sensor readings, are key to effectively monitoring conditions in a stored grain mass and managing optimal windows of aeration based on real-time weather data. 

The second article in this series focuses on the placement of temperature cables to effectively monitor the grain quality during the aeration and storage periods. 

Written By Younus Sabbir and Dr. Dirk Maier

In a previous article, we documented the feed value of screenings, which are quantified based on weight and may be recovered with a screen-cleaning system. When grain is loaded into a storage bin, screenings accumulate under loading spouts where they can create storage problems by retaining moisture, causing mold growth, increasing mycotoxin potential, attracting insects, and causing aeration inefficiencies.

By Alexis Lambros, George Obeng-Akrofi and Dirk Maier

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, US — Feed production is the largest expenditure of US Total Farm Production Expenditures, accounting for 18.5% of the estimated $452.7 billion in 2022, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the US Department of Agriculture. With recent growth in modern food systems, the feed industry is facing a series of challenges.

By George Obeng-Akrofi, Younus Bhuiyan Sabbir and Dirk Maier

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, US — Broken corn and foreign material (BCFM) is a grade factor that, along with screenings produced during handling and cleaning, generally is discounted in terms of monetary and nutritional value. Export buyers consistently cite “excessive fines” as their top complaint when comparing US corn with competitors.

In this article, we will determine the steps needed to produce the required products and develop a block flow of how the processes and steps are connected. The products made include mash feed, pelleted feed, textured feed, processed whole grains (rolled), premixes and bulk or bagged shipment. Using this information, the mill must be able to use grinding, flaking (for textured products), batching, mixing, pelleting, texturing and premixing systems.

The article will focus on ingredient receiving and suggestions for receiving system equipment. Ingredients may be received in several ways, including bulk, bag, tote and liquids. Non-liquid ingredients are unloaded through dump systems, bag and tote off-loading to a warehouse location, while liquids are received in bulk shipments or small totes.

This article considers the grain storage requirements and overhead ingredient storage needed for a feed mill. The article also discusses microsystems and bagged ingredient receiving.

This article describes the considerations necessary when designing a new feed mill.

Millers must determine the mixture volume for each formula to be weighed and mixed in the system.

This article is the first of a two-part series on the batching and mixing system for this feed mill. The series will include information on sizing the equipment and identifying the processing times needed to batch and mix those poultry and swine formulas.

How to size feeders to support required production design capacity.

Before being used in feed formulas, the dry ingredients need to be of similar particle size and distribution to blend and stay properly distributed in the formulation when mixed or further processed such as pelleting.

Examining the pellet milling process from start to finish.

Whether it’s an expansion or greenfield project, choosing the engineer and builder is of critical importance.

Everything you need to know about feed pelleting in a convenient, downloadable guide, from sources you trust. The free Feed Pelleting Reference Guide is from WATT Global Media and K-State University, as individual, topical PDF files within each of the six sections of the guide.

Equipment selection must include maintenance considerations.