Grain drying equipment (Twitter/@SKAgriculture)

By Becky Zimmer

Saving on drying

PAMI and Team Alberta study on grain drying efficiencies verging completion

Jul 28, 2021 | 11:25 AM

HUMBOLDT, Sask. — With operation costs for grain producers on the rise, especially with the expense of the federal carbon tax, Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) is looking for ways to make grain drying more efficient for producers.

PAMI has been part of the grain drying systems conversation for the past 45 years, Lorne Greiger, Project Manager for Agricultural Research and Development at PAMI, told farmnewsNOW.

As operations continue to grow and the size of the equipment and the size of grain storage grows with it, that conversation continues to evolve.

“What kind of pieces of information do I need to know when we started looking at implications from things like carbon tax and how can that affect overall operations and wasted efficiency,” said Greiger.

Those carbon costs to producers are only going to go up in the coming years, he said, so finding ways of cutting production costs are going to be even more helpful for producers in the future.

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PAMI partnered with Team Alberta; a commodity group that represents Alberta Barley, Alberta Canola, Alberta Pulse Growers and the Alberta Wheat Commission, for a three-year study to understand energy consumption during the drying processes. This partnership filled a gap that PAMI previously had in the data.

“This is one of the first chances we’ve had to understand what is that overall energy consumption that producers are typically seen in the typical year. This has started in 2019, we’ve done work in 2020, and continued into 2021.”

PAMI is studying two types of drying systems; the in-bin system and dedicated dryers, as well as different fuel sources, including propane and natural gas, as well as the potential of diesel fuel.

The prevalence of each system is dependant on storage availability on the operations, however, Grieger said they have not included transportation costs when looking at either system considering those costs vary on how each operation is set up and the locations of grain storage.

“That really comes down to the individual,” said Greiger.

Even with the Team Alberta study wrapping up this year, Greiger said producers can already be looking at their own operations and seeing where they can be more energy-efficient, and therefore also more cost-efficient. There are variables that producers can already address, both for their current setup and preparing for the future.

“Forecast what you can do to improve your overall setup and efficiency, and looking at ways to improve your current type of process, whether that’s an in bin system or a dedicated dryer, and managing the variables that you have to be as efficient as possible.”

Once the results of the study are collected and PAMI understands the energy inputs going into grain drying, “then we can make good decisions about what additional information is needed and what can producers do to make their systems more efficient as a whole moving forward,” said Greiger.

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becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim