They Moved Into Drying

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31908, 8 February 1969, Page 10

They Moved Into Drying

W. J. Patterson and Sons at Lakeside have dried about 3000 bushels of short rotation or Manawa ryegrass seed this season. Mr M. Patterson said this week that before the harvest began they had not been contemplating drying, but when at the beginning of the harvest period it became apparent that conditions might 'be difficult they acquired a fan and quickly organised drying arrangements, using materials available on the farm. They already had South-bridge-made plywood bins with v bottoms that they had acquired initially for holding barley. Four of these were bolted together to provide storage for about 1000 bushels of ryegrass. A wooden grating floor was built in these bins at the top of the v to give a storage space Bft wide and 4ft deep over a length of 32ft. A perforated metal strip, also in stock on the farm, was laid down the centre of the bin to carry the auger and hessian sheet was

laid on either side on top of the grating. The fan puffed in air underneath, the tractor driving the fan being sheeted down to raise the temperature of the air being blown in when that was necessary. The first seed to be harvested was brought in at a moisture content of 19 per cent and dried down to 13.8 per cent over 21 hours. Mr Patterson said that this drying was done in spells of two or three hours at a time as it was not considered advisable to do it all at once. This seed was subsequently loaded out in bulk to a Christchurch store. Another four lines have been dried since bringing the total seed dried to about 3000 bushels. The moisture content of the seed harvested has been up to 23 per cent Mr Patterson said that they had been told that they should be able also to use the fan to discharge the seed from the big bin, but they had found that they would not be able to do this without a good deal of hand work. It was possible that if the air was confined in a flume

they would be more successful, but meantime they had not yet found the ideal method to do this. Last season the Pattersons had nine paddocks of ryegrass being saved for seed badly knocked about by a north-west gale followed by an inch and a half of rain. After the storm a lot of the grass was hanging on fence lines. The result was that crops that looked like yielding 45 to 50 bushels of machine-dressed seed to the acre yielded only 16 to 27 bushels. Mr Patterson said that this season they had not been troubled by wind but hail had caught the last two paddocks to the extent of reducing the yield by about 50 per cent. The fan also has the capacity to dry two 40-ton silos of wheat at a time and the Pattersons expect that it will also probably come in handy one of these days when they are caught with wheat With ryegrass, Mr Patterson says that it means that they can proceed with harvesting about two to three days ahead of what they could do if they had to wait for drying by the sun.