Blending grain

[Blaithin]

Got some Harvest Sample Program results back.
Wheat harvested before all that rain has a falling number greater than 360 seconds. Will someone blend my sprouted wheat if the falling number is reasonable with the good stuff I have? Or is it the same when they said they CAN'T/WON'T blend high and low protein malt barley.

I can't wait to see what the falling number is on my " weathered" wheat.
It may not look pretty but it still might make good bread!

What are you considering a reasonable falling number in sprouted wheat?

FN is hard to blend. It’s not like protein or moisture where you can average between them and get a good blend. It’s more likely sprouted wheat will just bring down a good falling number if blended. It’s a very erratic, unpredictable and not usually helpful process. It’s part of the reason terminals are anal retentive when they know it’s a low FN, they could potentially lose a large bin of good wheat by just adding some sprouted in. Kind of like sticking some heated canola in, do it badly and you can lose a lot of good 1can to heated.

[farmaholic]

Blaithin, this is kinda new territory for me, I can't remember when we've had thus much harvest problems causing sprouting.

I thought 300 was the minimum wanted, maybe someone knows for sure.

Maybe that's a question for someone with no biased skin in the game?

I have been trying to make lemonaide from the lemons though by looking on the bright side and thinking it's not fusarium laden feed wheat, that alone should open afew doors.

[Blaithin]

The posters with examples of bread on them show 250 as an ideal FN. When the numbers get high up around 400 the loaves start to look really dense. But around here they always seem to want over 300 as well, sometimes you hear 280 as the magic number.

Really.... if your wheat is a 2 or 3 because of the subjective factors but has no sprouts it should still have a similar FN as when it was a 1. It’s my understanding it’s the sprouts that indicate and impact the alpha amylase issue, not frost or mildew.

Not saying it will be beneficial to anyone this year but if they do start buying wheat based more on FN then that could decrease the impact frost and mildew have on price spread. Depends how bad they are though I guess. A hard bran frost as a poor 3 is still going to be a pain for the millers but if it’s got a good FN.... 🤷*♀️

Knowing Murphy’s law, the year they really start buying on FN will be the year everyone has sprouts.

[bucket]

Farmer owned inland terminals were built.....alot with major GrainCo "affiliation". How many are left?
What about port shipping? Who owns those facilities? Rhetorical question.
So we need to re-invent the wheel for the third time. Farmer owned facilities 3.0

Yup and we get what we have in at the CGC and our checkoff money and the fairy tale money that is an ROI on that investment and start over....

150 million would buy 5 terminals ,,,use the churchill line since that was government funded...

Its looking like we may have to start over...

[Ache4Acres]

Link to a demo of a falling number test being performed. There must be an easier way - this seems quite labor intensive and a bit less than scientific

https://bakerpedia.com/processes/falling-number-test/ https://bakerpedia.com/processes/falling-number-test/

[malleefarmer]

Not funny farmaholic but you’ve reminded me of my dear ole dad who I worked side by side for 21 yrs.

If live give you lemons make lemonade well he used to say foook that just learn to stomach efffing lemons

My next comment I think is BS but I’ve been told by many that wheat which fails falling numbers store it and sell it in 3 months time bear in mind it’s 35 to 40 c after our harvest.

But as I said it probably bs.

Elevators don’t run averages for falling numbers which is basically blending by elevator? Meaning average for fn is x below parameters and you bring your load in which is over for fn but when blended it’s ok because average is lower? Never affects guys who have good fn.

Starting to think your elevators make life hard for ya in Canada. Opposite here as so many new port facilities going up the big boys have to play the game. Lot o new one grower owned storage only basically.

Bad old days of single desk we had what we called cliff faced pricing and grades.
They wonder why they lost it.

Modern marketers/graincos here bust there boilers nowadays

[Blaithin]

Link to a demo of a falling number test being performed. There must be an easier way - this seems quite labor intensive and a bit less than scientific

https://bakerpedia.com/processes/falling-number-test/ https://bakerpedia.com/processes/falling-number-test/

What do you expect it to be to be considered scientific?

It is a time consuming process that can really back up a delivery line if an elevator is doing every truck. The fact you want it to take more than 300 seconds to fall means you want it to take at least 5 minutes in that one machine, not including prep time. You want a quicker falling number then grow sprouted wheat I guess hah

Some day they’ll probably develop some other way to measure the enzymes but for now that’s the standard.

[TOM4CWB]

What are you considering a reasonable falling number in sprouted wheat?

FN is hard to blend. It’s not like protein or moisture where you can average between them and get a good blend. It’s more likely sprouted wheat will just bring down a good falling number if blended. It’s a very erratic, unpredictable and not usually helpful process. It’s part of the reason terminals are anal retentive when they know it’s a low FN, they could potentially lose a large bin of good wheat by just adding some sprouted in. Kind of like sticking some heated canola in, do it badly and you can lose a lot of good 1can to heated.

We try to grow wheat varieties with a 'G' or 'VG' resistance to sprouting. [Check Prov. variety rating charts] The Falling Numbers are rated on each variety as well, Brandon the Low with poor sprouting resistance 317, and Unity a "VG" with a FN of 415. Our local Paterson Grain checks all the FN's... on site... takes less than 20 minutes for the results. 300 minimum... like FN over 330... so diminished likelihood of a poor FN spot in load wrecking the lot is diminished. Swathing wheat in Sept that gets rained on... is also FN killer. It rains here every day... cold temps help preserve the FN.

[farmaholic]

So has there been any falling number test results come back yet? I may send the next harvest sample away now because the rest of the wheat out there will be different again.

The first two came back a #1 even though a GrainCo thinks it's a 1 and 2. Anything before the shit weather started will be gold! DESPITE ANY MINOR IMPERFECTION CAUSED BY THE MYRIAD OF GRADING DEMERITS AT THEIR DISPOSAL IN THE ARSENAL SANCTIONED BY THE CGC.

[farmaholic]

We try to grow wheat varieties with a 'G' or 'VG' resistance to sprouting. [Check Prov. variety rating charts] The Falling Numbers are rated on each variety as well, Brandon the Low with poor sprouting resistance 317, and Unity a "VG" with a FN of 415. Our local Paterson Grain checks all the FN's... on site... takes less than 20 minutes for the results. 300 minimum... like FN over 330... so diminished likelihood of a poor FN spot in load wrecking the lot is diminished. Swathing wheat in Sept that gets rained on... is also FN killer. It rains here every day... cold temps help preserve the FN.

In "hindsight" we made a poor management decision to swath because we had a viable workable straight cutting option. No coulda woulda shoulda because I don't need glasses for 20/20 hindsight vision. Made the decision, now live with it!