THOUGHTS ABOUT BULK HANDLING

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29336, 15 October 1960, Page 8

THOUGHTS ABOUT BULK HANDLING

Modifications And Plans

With the next harvest now only about three months away bulk handlers are thinking of modifications of techniques which they have already tried out and potential bulk handlers are planning the change over taking advantage of the experience of those who are already bulk handling.

Mr R. W. Skurr, of 'River View, Waddington, went .into bulk handling at short notice before last harvest with the co-operation of a local transport operator and the railways. He was prompted to moVe tiiis way by the diffl-* culty of securing competent bag sewers and of getting bags opt of the paddock quickly when transport Services were under pressure. particularly with the prospect of increasing wheat acreages. To make the change over the only piece of new equipment He bought was a 6m auger. He used a motor he had on the- farm to drive it. To make the initial change over as economically as possible was one of his aims. With the aid of a man in his employ, Mr Skurr built up a wooden bin with a capacity of about 25 bushels to fit on his 6ft cut header. It was made out of old scrap material on the farm. There was room behind the bin for seconds to be bagged.

The bin had a trapdoor at the bottom so that when it was full it could be unloaded on to two 18ft by 24ft bag sheets which were put down in a central position rn the harvest paddock. When the transport lorry With 20in high sides arrived, the auger was pushed into the' mounded heap. Two men with shovels were, however, unable .to keep the grain up to the auger to keep it working to capacity. At the railway siding the grain was transferred from the motor lorry to the railway waggon with a clam shell loader.

Refitieuieuls For next harvest Mr Skurr is planning some refinements. He has bought an old tip truck which he will convert .into a tip trailer with the hoist, which is still in good condition, being operated from the tractor’s power take off. A metgl tank capable of holding 35 to W bushels of wheat will be -fitted to the header which will be equipped with dual wheels to take the extra capacity tank which will have an unloading auger.

The tip traitor will be used to carry the grain from the field to a hopper in front of farm storage. Here it is planned to transfer the grain by auger to a plywood silo, of probably 30 tons capacity, in a bay of anew implement shed which is in process of building on the farm. One or two silos will be set up here.

A strongly constructed loft over the woolshed may a Iso be used for grain storage. These storage facilities are being, regarded as only temporary storage until such time aS the transport operator can move the grain to rail and railway waggons are available. However, it is probable that the silo or silos will be left filled at the end of the season to allow the increment to be collected to help pay for the installation.

A ton truck will be used as a field bin to take the giain while the tip trailer is away being unloaded into the farm store. On a fann in the Meifchven district the change over to bulk handling is being made in conjunction with the erection of a new 60ft by 44ft prefabricated steel barn. Along one dfide of the shed there will be a grain store with a wooden floor at truck deck height, and on the other side there will be a concrete floor, with plastic moisture barriel', on which it is planned initially to place seven 20 ton plywood silos wilh space available for another two or three. Trucks will be able to back right into the shed and unload into a hopper from which the grain will be augered into the silos. The farm truck is to be fitted with a light-weight plywood bin with a built-in unloading auger.

Loading Out As a result of the experiences of G. D. Gi Handers and Sons of Darfleld it is planned to cut a hole in the side, of the silos to allow extra grain to be withdrawn with an auger and there will be a recess in the concrete floor at the door of each sjlo to allow £he auger to rest there so that grain which has to be shovelled towards the auger when the bin is nearly empty will flow piore readily. Bulk handling is expected to have a number of advantages on this farm. It will mean that speed of heading will be stepped up. In the past it has been possible to work only as fast as the bag sewers could handle the crop. It will also remove the dependence on competent bag sewers. In the past there have been two men sewing and one man hooking on and taking off bags on the header platform as well as another tnfih driving. In favourable weather it is hdw expected that it will be possible to head continuously fbr 24 hours a day with only two men working at a time one on the header and one on the bulk truck. This farm is too distant from rail for direct cartage of grain in bulk to the railway and as harvesting often begins in the first or second week of February when transport services .and mill storage are hard pressed farm storage is.* regarded ds essential. A new tank is being bdilt Tor the farm’s new 10ft cut harvester

ahd it is expected that with the aid of a front-end loader it will be possible to remove this tank to convert to bagging in only about five minutes.

The Gillanders al Darfleld only recently loaded out their eight 20 tons' silos. Part of the wheat was carted directly to town in high sided transport vehicles—--50 tons in a day—and pail was carted to rail at .Darfleld in the farm motor lorry with auger fitted in the base of the bulk bin and high delivery tflbe which enabled the wheat to be fed into a railway waggon from ordinary ground level without having to use a high level loading bank.

The silos on this property have been placed in an existing grain shed and to unload them the contents of some had to be transferred to silos nearer the shed

door.. iTo load into the transport- truck or farm truck the auger was held high on the front-end loader to allow the trucks to take delivery underneath. About three Or four tons of wheal in each silo had to be shovelled to the auger. In this respect Mr Bruce Gillanders says that. suction would have a role if it could be applied at a reasonable' price. During storage the wheat became very dusty and Mr Gillanders says that this points to the need for Storage sheds being well ventilated. For next harvest the Gillanders are planning a field bin so that the harvesting in bulk can be put on a two-man basis. The bin holding about 80 bushels of two header tank fulls will be towed behind a tractor and will have an unloading auger driven off the tractor power take-off. This will be used to take the grain while the farm’s bulk truck is away unloading at the farm store.

Sir Walter Mulholland and his sons, Arthur and Douglas, the veteran bulk handlers in Canterbury, have used their new bulk store for the first time this season. Iff the 00ft by 20fit steel frame store ,wi th insulated concrete floor, the Mulhollands stored about 7000 bushels from January to September. The brothers say that. the building came fully up to expectations, and Arthur says that he, does not believe, a permanent storage building could be built more economically at about £lOO per 1000 bushels of storage space—maximum capacity is put at about 12,000 bushels.

A stake driven five inches from the middle of one of the 10ft panels between the steel pipe supporting pillars showed that the

wall sprang about three-quarters of an inch with the pressure of the grain. Bi ids were effectively kept out of the shed with netting, but mice came in in great numbers, biting their way through the polythene sealing on the supporting pillars, but they did no more damage than creating an unpleasant smell. Douglas Mulholland says that not half a bag of wheat would have been lost of.all that was put into storage.

The wheat was elevated out of the stole at the rate of about a ton a minute—about the same rate as it was put in. A front-end loader with bucket was used to move the grain, towards the elevator. Two motor lorries taking Seven tons a load cleared the shed in three days and a half. A division may be put in the shed for the next harvest to enable some 1800 to 2000 bushels of wheat to be stored separately in the event of any wheat being harvested out of condition. Reporting recently on moisture content of wheat held in store in bulk, Mr C. J. Crosbie. farm advisory officer (machinery), of the Department of Agriculture, said the figures, including those taken on the two Darfield farms already mentioned, showed that there were no moisture changes in the main mass of the material.