Farmers point out risks in adding water

Thank you to the readers who sent me emails adding to the discussion about adding water to grain. See yesterday's blog entry to see where this originated. Terry James of Vegreville, Alta., made a good point about sticking with tonnes and ignoring bushels.

"While you are correct in your assumptions about drier canola weighing less per bushel, this fact is irrelevant to the discussion. We are paid by weight whenever we sell anything. (The weight is then converted back to bushels because we like to see it that way)," he wrote.

"A 40-tonne load of canola at 10 per cent contains four tonnes (4,000 kg) of water.  A 40-tonne load of canola at six per cent moisture contains 2.4 tonnes (2,400 kg)  of water.  If canola was worth $400 per tonne and you could add that water back, you would get additional revenue of 1.6 tonnes times 400 = $640.  However you would then have a load of 41.6 tonnes. To maintain our 40-tonne load you would have to load only 38.4 tonnes of the six per cent canola.

Sticking to tonnes certainly simplifies the equation. I also got a few good cautionary emails. Here are some examples

You don't want a soupy mess

Mark Astner of Ferintosh, Alta., writes: "I guess one thing that has to be thought about when doing something like this is the chance of disaster.  Canola is an oilseed and oil and water do not mix.  Once the seed has dried down, it is very unlikely that you can get water to go back into the seed very easily. 

"I’ve never had the gull to try this myself but have heard of a few instances in central Alberta where guys have done this (added canola and water to a truck and let sit over night before delivery) and gotten to the elevator with a soupy mess in the bottom of their trailer only to be sent home with the gunk."

Lost money on lower protein

Sure, he got more bushels, but when Victor Lee of Hawarden, Sask., added water to dry wheat in 2003, he actually lost money because his protein percentage dropped. Victor writes: "We tried adding water to 1,200 bushels of wheat. We set the auger at about 30 bushels/minute and added 3.5 gal/min to wheat using a garden hose connected to a water hydrant. We went from 11.6 per cent moisture up to 13.8 per cent moisture, gaining 23 bushels through moisture increase.

"But the protein went from 14.4 per cent down to 13.7 per cent."

Victor figures he lost 23 cents a bushel because of the drop in protein, or $276 on the original 1,200 bushels. Initial payment for the extra 23 bushels was only $56.

Will your trucker take it?

Murray Puffalt of Kipling, Sask., says some truckers are terrified of adding water because of the possibility the product may stick to the inside of the trailer.  "I would probably hesitate to do it with canola. Cereals and pulses soak up water quickly enough that it really isn't very wet when it drops from the auger," he writes. "It might be asking for trouble to attempt to reach an exact moisture content. Most farmers would probably be satisfied with 1.0 per cent under maximum allowed."

Make sure your tester is accurate  

Greg Cochran of Saskatchewan advises you to make sure you know how your moisture tester compares to your elevator's tester. "It is pretty hard to argue with the value of selling water. But it is also pretty important to have a good accurate grain tester and know how it compares to your local elevator's," Greg writes. "Our local terminals pretty consistently test the exact same sample 0.5 to 1.0 per cent tougher than we get on our bi-annually calibrated tester.  For that exact reason, I think that some guys might be a little scared of it, or feel like it is dishonest, but I say until the elevators start adding premiums for over dry grain or correcting to a dry weight as they do when its tough, it's fair game."