Natural air drying

[poorboy]

Has anyone had great success in past years with natural air dring. I live east of Calgary, and with 1cfm per bushel in a 5000 bushel bin I have trouble getting grain to dry. I have a keho full floor airation system and often try to dry barley from 15.5 moisture to 13.5 with no success.

Do the supplemental heat systems for natural air drying work. You can get up to 300000 btu's per fan by hooking up a small firebox. Claims of drying your bin of grain in a couple of days. Sounds to good to be true, but maybe it works.

[wvanroessel]

Natural air drying will only work if the air is warm and dry enought to dry the grain in the field. This late in the season, given the temps and humidities we've had, you'll likely need some extra heat.

[danm]

Dan from soggy manitoba,we found electric heaters for our KEHO's here & they should be here this week.The neighbors have had them for years & have been happy.
I have seen some people home rigging things such a karosene heaters etc & it really scares me what we might see burning some night.
The heaters are supposed to run on 220 so no extra wiring costs.These are cheaper for us to run than propane though since hydro is cheaper here.
hope this helps

[cris]

be careful if you don't have enough air you will stall your drying front. This can lead some dry and some raelly wet grain. This late in the year it most often takes a grain dryer. fans don't run for free either!!