More tips for bagging grain

We've had a few articles in Grainews about alternative grain storage systems, including grain bags. We keep learning more about them. Kevin Beernaert of Hartney, Man., has an Akron grain bagger and extractor (made in Argentina, hence the Spanish website) that he bought last year in partnership with another farm in the area. His local retailer is Tweed Farm Equipment in Medora, Man. He filled about eight bags in 2008, with 8,000 bushels in each. In general, he really likes the system. “I think you can have too much money tied up in bin storage,” he says. “For surge capacity, the bags are a lot better than buying more bins.”

And because you fill them right there in the field, they improve harvest efficiency. You do need a grain cart to dump into the bagger, so that is another cost if you don’t already have one. But with the cart and bagger at work, you can keep combines going without having trucks racing back and forth to keep up. In one field, Beernaert had been hauling 12 miles back to the yard and the combine often had to wait for the truck to return. By switching to the bags and filling them there in the field, the combines didn’t have to stop. The only time it stopped was when the combine operator had to help put a new bag on. It takes three people about 10 minutes to switch bags.

Another benefit to bags is that if you’re the only one on the farm with a class one license and you’re also the combine operator, your hired help or family members can run the cart and fill the bags without having to go out on the road. You can deal with trucking the grain after harvest is complete. Beernaert got the elevator to pick up grain from the bags, so he didn’t have to move the grain at all. The extractor can load a super B faster than an auger, he adds.

Beernaert's tips

Having said all that, Beernaert did have a few problems in year one that he plans to correct for 2009.

1. He emptied one bag last week and found water had entered in through the ends. He thinks it was because the operator filled the bag too full — it was 3 a.m. after a long harvest day — and there wasn’t enough bag left to create a good seal. As recommended, he uses two 2-by-6 boards nailed together then nails the bag to the boards. He said it would be better to have enough bag left over to roll the bag around the board three times before nailing it closed. He didn’t expect to leave this bag until June, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Water had entered through the end and trickled quite a ways down the bag. Grain at the bottom was wet, but because there’s no air, the grain wasn’t moldy.

2. Beernaert put his bags near approaches to the fields, again expecting that to be the most convenient place for winter unloading. But next time he’d put bags on the highest hill to keep them dry — just in case the bags have to sit a few months longer than expected.

3. “Don’t put bags near the bush,” he says. One of his other bags went on a field edge near the woods. Wild turkeys pecked holes in the bag to get at the oats inside. This attracted deer, and then in spring, a herd of cattle got out and wandered over to the bag, cleaning up what the deer left behind. Bags beside the bush are more likely to attract wildlife damage, Beernaert figures.