The three-year study will assess on-farm energy consumption
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Alberta grain groups are asking farmers to participate in a study about grain conditioning.
Team Alberta, which is made up of the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions, Alberta Pulse Growers and Alberta Canola, want to study about 40 grain drying systems over a three-year period.
The goal of the research is to assess the on-farm energy usage and efficiency of heated air drying, in-bin natural air drying (NAD) and in-bin NAD with supplemental heat.
"What we'll hope to develop is a bit of a guide for farmers who are looking to either install new systems on farms, or to expand or modify their existing systems to help give some guidance to what we've seen as being the most efficient configuration from an energy use perspective,” Shannon Sereda, government relations and policy manager with Alberta Wheat and Barley, told HighRiver Online.
Any farmers interested in participating must fill out an intake form.
3D Energy, an engineering, management and project development company hired by the grain groups, will contact the farmers for the study.
Producers will work with the company to install measuring implements, and perform data readings and manual logging.
At the conclusion of the study, participating farmers will receive information about their drying systems with recommendations on how to reduce the cost of grain drying.
Reducing grain drying costs while increasing its capabilities is a topic of conversation during harvest, said Lynn Jacobson, president of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture.
“It becomes of interest in the fall depending on how wet it has been and the moisture content of grain,” he told Farms.com. “But there’s always interest in different fans and what’s more economical.”