Preventing grain spoilage and fire

02-11-2021 | Crop solutions | Article

Digital monitoring gives a real-time (or on-demand) look at crop quality in the bin.

Grain quality management ends once the crop enters storage, right? Not according to Bin-Sense, a Canadian company behind monitoring systems helping growers keep grain quality high, prevent property damage, and avoid on-farm safety hazards after harvest.

Spoilage and fire risk

Spoilage in stored grain is an ever-present risk. Grain harvested and stored with high moisture content –or which, due to exterior environmental conditions, develop higher moisture content within the storage bin – is at a much higher risk of spoilage.

Cases where monitoring could have prevented major financial and production headaches are not uncommon, according to Warren Feist, Saskatchewan-based market development director for Bin-Sense. Even small amounts of heat can spur significant losses, particularly in more volatile crops like canola. With enough heat, fire damage can cost growers both the grain inside a bin, as well as the bin itself.

“I’ve seen bins being jackhammered,” says Feist. “A lot of producers put a lot of money into, you know, the bins are expensive, tractors, inputs into the field at seeding, insurance to go on it, and a lot of times once its in the bin and the harvest is taken off, it’s a kind of forget it mentality.”

Real-time control

Bin-Sense Direct is an on-site handheld grain monitoring reader. Plugging the reader into bin cables directs data to the Bin-Sense smartphone app. - Photo: Bin-Sense — Bin-Sense Direct is an on-site handheld grain monitoring reader. Plugging the reader into bin cables directs data to the Bin-Sense smartphone app. – Photo: Bin-Sense

Bin-Sense Live, the company’s flagship monitoring system, gathers hourly reports of moisture levels and hot spots via monitoring cables within the bin. Information can be accessed remotely through a smartphone, and settings can be customized to send alerts once temperature or moisture levels surpass a predetermined threshold – if the temperature jumps from 22 to 28 degrees Celsius in a week, for example. Bin-Sense Live systems also allow for the remote operation of fans.

Similarly, Bin-Sense Direct is an on-site handheld grain monitoring reader. Plugging the reader into bin cables directs data to the Bin-Sense smartphone app.

Both systems are designed to be compatible with most bin cable designs, including those measuring both temperature and moisture, or just temperature. Cables and Bin-Sense products are scalable for any size bin, though larger bins do require more internal structural support to effectively mount cables. Installation is thus easier on newly constructed bins.

Costs generally range from $ .03 to $ .06 (CDN) cents per bushel over a ten-year period, with dual-metric cable systems being more costly than temperature reading alone. Additional power sources are not required to run either the handheld or fixed real-time device, the latter being solar powered.

_{Text continues underneath video}

Extending crop insurance

Installing monitoring cables. - Photo: Calvin Fehr — Installing monitoring cables. – Photo: Calvin Fehr

For Anthony Wideman, an Ontario grain grower, the labour-saving capability provided by the real-time system is a clear benefit. For those with schedules and a farm scale suitable to a little extra labour, the cheaper manual monitoring system might be preferrable.

The risk for spoilage never leaves

Himself a producer of corn, soybeans, winter wheat and barley, Wideman says the extra insurance provided by grain bin monitoring systems is the central reason he employs the technology. Also acting as a regional Ontario dealer for Bin-Sense, he equates in-bin monitoring systems to “insuring grain for pennies per bushel.” This, he believes, is ever more critical as the size of bins – and the amount of on-farm storage generally – continues to trend upwards across North America. “You know how many dollars you have tied to each of those bins,” Wideman says. “The risk for spoilage never leaves.”

Keenan Fahlman – Holdfast Saskatchewan, Canada

Keenan Fahlman in his combine. – Photo: Calvin Fehr

With 10,000 cropping acres and storage bins ranging from 5000 to 25,000 bushels in size, Keenan Fahlman believes grain monitoring systems are crucial to his family’s fifth-generation grain, pulse, and oilseed operation.
Grain monitoring systems were always of interest to Fahlman and his family, but options were historically very limited. The inventor of Bin-Sense’s system happened to be a neighbour, however, meaning they were able to get involved with the company from its earliest days.
Now Fahlman maintains real-time sensors and cables in every on-farm storage structure. The technology has proved its worth numerous times, particularly for canola – the small seeds of which make for a very dense grain mass, lowering air flow and heightening the risk of moisture and heat pockets developing. “During harvest when everything gets busy, that’s when we find it the most useful…right in the busiest time of the year,” Fahlman says. “I don’t know how you can store $ 2 million in inventory and not know what’s going on in there.”
The interfaces used in Bin-Sense’s app and web-based systems is another aspect which Fahlman finds valuable and easy to use, though one which has improved over time. Luckily, he says cellular connectivity in his area is good – something which is not always a given in other parts of the province and country – meaning connectivity with the monitoring system is steady.
In terms of future opportunities, Fahlman and his family have considered whether bin cables and monitoring systems could be augmented with the capability to measure inventory levels. To his knowledge such technology is not currently available, but they believe it would be an efficient and valuable way to keep track of how many bushels are left in the bin in real-time.