GrainsWest Spring 2020

Spring 2020 grainswest.com 39 early October, late harvests have been increasingly frequent over the last number of years. “Harvest has been significantly delayed the last six years running in Alberta,” she said. Since grain drying via natural aeration slows down greatly at low temperatures, the late-harvest trend is exacerbating this drawback. And for the farmer who wants to dry grain quickly for immediate sale, natural aeration isn’t the answer. “You’re out of luck,” said Palmer. “Natural aeration isn’t going to cut it for you.” Natural aeration requires patience and the inconvenience of monitoring the process. “The most important thing is you can keep it safe without spoiling,” he added. Natural aeration isn’t very effective in wet, cold weather, said Palmer. “I got call after call in this wet weather,” he said. “‘We took our grain off and it’s wet, and it’s cold. What do we do about it now?’” In this situation, he explained, the grain doesn’t have any heat energy to fuel the natural aeration process. Reflecting this, the Lakeland College students had tried to use natural aeration on their first crop of barley in late September, turning on the fan during the heat of the day and turning it off at night. However, by the last week of September, temperatures were too low to get much drying done. This is when the students switched to air-drying with supplemental heat. Farmers usually resort to supplemental heat, and here there’s also a potential pitfall. “The problem is that that nice warm air From left to right, Lakeland College students Amanda Mathiot, Austin Bartko and Nora Lazarkomonitor the temperature of grain stored on the Student-Managed Farm. Students profitably used natural air drying to condition their wet crop. gets to the top of the grain, hits the cold roof, and guess what happens? It condenses—it rains back down onto the grain,” said Palmer. To avoid this, Palmer recommends adding a little supplemental heat during the day, and cycling it out at night by running the aeration fan without heat. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE If Lakeland College students harvest another late, wet crop they will likely use natural air-drying again, said Pettyjohn. The technique was successful, and the drying process didn’t diminish the quality of the grain. The students were able to sell their wheat at No. 2. “I think it’s the only logical option we have at the college,” he said. But Bodell isn’t sure the same process would work well where manpower is in short supply or when there’s a high volume of grain to be dried. “It's nice being able to walk away from it and letting it dry, but having to refuel every eight hours can be a challenge if you’re busy,” he said. Whether it’s a shift in climate patterns or a run of really bad luck, the increasing frequency of late harvests caused by poor weather demands action said Agnew. “I hope the trend of poor weather during harvest doesn’t continue, but it will be wise for us to define and adopt practices to mitigate the risks in case it does continue.”