Storage per acre

[poorboy]

To be real meaningful the storage number needs to be a percentage of average yields for your farm. If you grow mainly 20 bushel lentil crops you are going to need much less storage than growing mainly 100 bushel barley crops.

I grow barley, wheat, canola and peas and have 65 bushels/ac storage, which is about the same as my long term average yield.

[farmaholic]

A cheap ****er from here once told me there's as much ground to store it on as you grew it on.

Another huge factor is how much land you rent and how spread out those acres are. People who rent alot around here use alot of grain bags. I don't think you can own storage for rented land.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I try to maintain at least 100 bu/acre storage as we expand acreage. On a good year we need almost that much(this definitely wasn't one of those years, cereals yes, canola not even close).

Had a few recent years where we have filled every bin, shed, quonset then had no where to turn tough grain.

Drying in bins requires extra storage, best not to fill completely full, need to turn the grain.

Nearest elevator over an hour away. Harvest season here is typically an intense round the clock affair, and everything tends to be ready at once, so there is no window for hauling in between.

I'm not a big fan of taking advantage of harvest happy hour pricing, I don't sell ahead due to high risks of not getting a crop off around here, this year is a perfect example. My marketing strategy involves holding grain until I can get an acceptable price. Sold 2017, a lot of my 2016, and some left over 2015 feed wheat and barley this summer when the opportunity came. That payed for a lot of bins.

Of course, I'm not buying many new bins unless in a bind, buy used bins, extend them, and put them on farmer built hoppers with U trough aeration. Can get an aeration hopper bin set up for closer to $2 per bushel rather than $4 to $5 for new. Buying used steel floors whenever I can find bargains too.

[Sheepwheat]

About 100 bushels an acre here. But I do not use the 8 or so 1650 flat bottoms from the olden days, unless I have lots of oats or barley. Then I cram em with flax or canola. Been buying new bins in the years I can afford to. Nice to open a chute and let er buck. Use a ten inch super charged Brandt to haul out with. One thing I always did hate was slow augers and shoveling grain, sweep or not. That and moving augers after 2/3 of a load on. After shovelling. Drove me nuts.

So while my farm is way behind in 95% of ways, I am in good shape for storage and load out. Only regret was not buying 14 foot cones when they were 1400 bucks, and buying a few flat bottoms early in my career.

Hopper bins hold their value, you have to figure that into the cost that seems to turn some off. Not much iron you can buy these days that retain value on the farm these days. And the time savings, and labor savings are enormous.

[Ronski]

62000 bushels of storage for 800 acres, its enough but kind of a pain. Whats a hopper anyways?

[MBgrower]

65 bpa. could use a little more. often have lots of time to move some presold early harvested crops before the soybeans are ready for harvest.

[Guest]

44 bu/ac , 500 ac borage and alfalfa helps also , hauled out 17 bpa during the extended harvest also , that helped . still wasn't enough this year . have a bagger and extractor , hope I never have to use it again

[crusher]

Usually enough storage for all the crop and a little carryover. 210,000 bushels for 2,500 acres.

[HappyFarmer]

Buckets gripe about building bins got me wondering.
What % of annual production #s does everyone feel they need in bin capacity?? Or say if your canola and wheat avg 50 - 60 is that a number.
I'd say 60bpa nice workable here.
Many variables of course.

67 bushels per acre is what we have. Hate delivering grain at harvest and gives more flexiblity around marketing. Wouldnt have it any other way.

[mustardman]

58 bushels per acre here. Mixture of hoppers (4700 Bush) and 3400 flats. Own a Share in grain vac with neighbor for those. A lot of extra bins Needed if your growing A lot of different crops , and keeping some for seed as well.
Most years holding and waiting for upticks in price has worked. The last couple years however the guys who just dump it all at Harvest look like a Genius lol