Ron Palmer's aeration message is out. Run the fans the first day to get a 1% moisture percentage drop. Then basically never run the fans uless the outside temperature is LESS THAN the grain temperature in the bin. He says bin fans are probably way way oversized by maybe a factor of ten.
Of ourse one may have missed something in an hour presentation and questions afterward, But unless I missed something; I understand these conclusions are based on observations of running fans continuously; for way too long according to him. Just about every warm day after 9am. adds moisture to the grain which then takes most of the cool night aeration hours to get that mosture back out He also correctly states that cold grain doesnt spoil. There is also a suspicion of a claim that you can dry grain with cold or maybe freezing air. I don't see the convincing evidence that that is practical or efficient.
My personal critique of the interpretation of the experimental data is that a possibly overlooked major factor is the warmer daytime air being injected into the grain mass for half a day; plus the heat from the aeration motor and heat generated by attempting to force thousands of cubic feet per minute into the grain. You might as well say that amounts to the watts of electrical energy used by the aeration fan during the day. (I don't understand any energy balance from the supposed addition of water being added to the grain mass during the day).
That addition of heat during the warmer day period; plus the heat off the fan motor and the "heat of compression" generated by the fan is bing ignored in my opinion.
That is bound to have an effect of raising the grain temperature; and would obviously make the night time aeration seem much more effective than would be without the effect of raising the grain temperature thoughout the daytime hours.
Apparently there were no checks comparing the initial grain weight put into the bin and the grain weight finally removed from the bin. Those figures would have verified the calculation of actual moisture removed or added. My opinion is that load cells and scales under the entire bin; would have simplified just what moisture was added or subtracted; and that side by side identical bins; fans and contents would have put this argument to rest. Maybe I missed it; but has anyone in the world go any expeiental data on just running fans at night as is being recommended by Dr. Palmer. I fully agree that cold grain isn't going to spoil; but there are such things as hot spots that had better be cooled by adequate air flow to accomplish that throughout the bin. And I'm not sure a half horse power motor in a 10,000 or 60000 bushel bin thirty feet wide or 60 feet tall would be adequate.
I concede the cost of load cells that would be required; and agree that natural winds woud make extremely accurate weights more difficult.
But legal weights are obtained from scale platforms outdoors and livestock on auction market scales don't ever stand still; and here is such a technique as averaging consecutive meassurements; or allowing scale software to give you an accurate average of multiple readings over any sort of time period. And there is no reason weight readings could not be taken every one to five 5 minutes, for instance,(and averaged) rather than every hour on which the present conclusions wer reached.
There's more to practical efficient aeration than any researcher has so far published or put forth as their theory.
My conclusion is that the first hours of cooling hot grain off the combine have aways held the key to the secrets being revealed. And after that; keeping grain cold prevents spoilage. Anything else is a bit like "cold fusion" and perpetual motion. The guy or gal who does get anything approaching 100% or better efficiencies will truely have contributed to research.
Of ourse one may have missed something in an hour presentation and questions afterward, But unless I missed something; I understand these conclusions are based on observations of running fans continuously; for way too long according to him. Just about every warm day after 9am. adds moisture to the grain which then takes most of the cool night aeration hours to get that mosture back out He also correctly states that cold grain doesnt spoil. There is also a suspicion of a claim that you can dry grain with cold or maybe freezing air. I don't see the convincing evidence that that is practical or efficient.
My personal critique of the interpretation of the experimental data is that a possibly overlooked major factor is the warmer daytime air being injected into the grain mass for half a day; plus the heat from the aeration motor and heat generated by attempting to force thousands of cubic feet per minute into the grain. You might as well say that amounts to the watts of electrical energy used by the aeration fan during the day. (I don't understand any energy balance from the supposed addition of water being added to the grain mass during the day).
That addition of heat during the warmer day period; plus the heat off the fan motor and the "heat of compression" generated by the fan is bing ignored in my opinion.
That is bound to have an effect of raising the grain temperature; and would obviously make the night time aeration seem much more effective than would be without the effect of raising the grain temperature thoughout the daytime hours.
Apparently there were no checks comparing the initial grain weight put into the bin and the grain weight finally removed from the bin. Those figures would have verified the calculation of actual moisture removed or added. My opinion is that load cells and scales under the entire bin; would have simplified just what moisture was added or subtracted; and that side by side identical bins; fans and contents would have put this argument to rest. Maybe I missed it; but has anyone in the world go any expeiental data on just running fans at night as is being recommended by Dr. Palmer. I fully agree that cold grain isn't going to spoil; but there are such things as hot spots that had better be cooled by adequate air flow to accomplish that throughout the bin. And I'm not sure a half horse power motor in a 10,000 or 60000 bushel bin thirty feet wide or 60 feet tall would be adequate.
I concede the cost of load cells that would be required; and agree that natural winds woud make extremely accurate weights more difficult.
But legal weights are obtained from scale platforms outdoors and livestock on auction market scales don't ever stand still; and here is such a technique as averaging consecutive meassurements; or allowing scale software to give you an accurate average of multiple readings over any sort of time period. And there is no reason weight readings could not be taken every one to five 5 minutes, for instance,(and averaged) rather than every hour on which the present conclusions wer reached.
There's more to practical efficient aeration than any researcher has so far published or put forth as their theory.
My conclusion is that the first hours of cooling hot grain off the combine have aways held the key to the secrets being revealed. And after that; keeping grain cold prevents spoilage. Anything else is a bit like "cold fusion" and perpetual motion. The guy or gal who does get anything approaching 100% or better efficiencies will truely have contributed to research.
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