In-House Training – Grain managers without formal training

Real-life examples of the cost of having grain managers without formal training.

Examples: #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8

Example #1 - “We always did it this way when Tom was here”.
Cost: $18,000 - 25,000
A large coop recently acquired a location consisting of a small headhouse, a 250,000-bu flat store and three metal bins. The regional manager visited to check on the “new” facility shortly after milo harvest. All the milo had been dried in the high-temperature dryer, and was rather uniformly 10.5 - 11.5 % m.c. In north-central Kansas, milo usually arrives at the elevator with 12 - 16 % m.c. The concerned regional manager asked the young elevator man, three years on the job, why he had dried the grain instead of aerating and blending to meet the accepted moisture limit. The answer was “This is what we always did when Tom was here”, referring to the recently-retired manager. “Tom figured it was better to be safe”.

Example #2 - Soybean fumigation
Cost: $1,100
The recent graduate had barely started his apprenticeship at the terminal elevator when the manager was called away for a week. A bin of soybeans, stored in one of the few aeration bins, developed a warm spot that wasn’t there the previous week. The apprentice asked a senior hourly worker “what do you do when grain gets a hot spot?” Assuming that the grain was wheat and that the bin had no aeration fan, the hourly guessed “turn and fumigate”. When the manager returned, he found the beans still heating, but they were now under fumigation in a non-air bin. The cost of two turns exceeded $1,000 - plus additional splits.

Example #3 - Three years lost
Cost: Unknown
The experienced elevator operator in a small company was well known because of his leadership in professional organizations. He was hired by a larger company and installed in a large terminal elevator in a situation very different than his experience. He probably had requested repairs to the temperature monitoring system, but, when they weren’t made, did not take precautionary measures to ensure grain quality. The eventual loss included at least two large bins of binburned soybeans and his job. It was three years before his young family was again settled.

Example #4 -
Cost: At least 3¢ per bu per year.
An exceptionally competent elevator manager with several years experience was promoted to a large terminal elevator located several hundred miles to the south of his mid-west home. The new elevator stored lots of wheat, an unknown crop. The site manager/merchandiser was a local, so the northerner asked for advice on the new crop. “Wait until colder weather to fumigate so that the wheat will cool during the fumigation” was the merchandiser’s advice. Fall harvest was large, long, and wet. When the wheat turning and fumigation began in December, the grain in several bins refused to flow without help. (Probably these were the bins with the hidden layer of high-moisture grain, and the problem was especially acute in the annex with the undersized discharge spouts.) The slow-down meant that a lot of wheat did not get turned until 6-8 months after harvest in a house where only 20% of the bins have aeration fans. Dealing with the germ damage and IDK was an especially traumatic experience for the novice, for much of the wheat had to go to domestic flourmills. But the first-timer learned his lesson. From now on and until he retires, all wheat and milo must be turned every 3 months. If you don’t, it clumps.

Example #5 - “It’s cooler than the grain”
Cost: $960 per bin
A long-time GM of a successful coop is in the final stages of upgrading aeration through his multi-site country elevator system. Wheat harvest was nearly finished and the thermometer read 103°F on the afternoon that I asked a site manager how he liked having aeration in all his bins. The answer was lost in the noise of 20 aeration fans. I took a guess as to why the fans were on. “No, I don’t have any wet wheat in those bins”, the manager said, “I have run those fans for five days now”. I protested that night-time temperatures were in the 70’s, which would provide better cooling. “Some of that wheat is 108 degrees” he explained. “Yes it’s hot today, but it’s cooler than the grain”.

Example #6 - “They told me to run the fans”
Cost: $3,700
Milo always is kept in the metal bins at a country location of a large coop. Unlike the bins in the small upright house, the metal bins (48,000 bu each) have good aeration to keep grain in condition. During the 2003 fall harvest, the two bins were filled with milo at about 14% m.c. and the standard operating procedure - running the fans for about 3 weeks - was followed. When the fans were turned off, the bottom-to-top moisture gradient was 11.1% to 13.2% in bin 206. In bin 207, the gradient was 10.7% to 15.6%. “No, we can’t remove the peak because we don’t have the room” explained the outside man. “Yes, we will do the same thing next year. They tell me to run the fans”.

Example #7 - “That’s the way Bob taught me”
Cost: $3,200
He is a favorite among the group of farmers that gathers to drink coffee in the coop office, and has been the manager of the small country location for several years. Yes, he knew that one bin of corn had a hot spot near the top, but “we had several wheat bins under fumigation, and Bob never let anyone in the elevator (except at the pit) for two weeks after wheat was fumigated”. The current manager is proud of his mentor, who served there for nearly 40 years, and “that’s the way Bob taught me”.

Example #8 - “Part of the SOP”
Cost: $1,260
The country house has aeration capability in about half of the bins, but the “air bins” must be emptied before fall harvest. The manager “takes out the harvest heat” when possible. That’s the standard operating procedure. Last year, 7 bins of new wheat were aerated for about 5 days. Of course, that wheat was moved out of the elevator by mid-August because it was occupying the air bins. That left the warmer, un-aerated wheat for the storage manager to deal with. “But at least we are getting some good out of the air bins”.

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