J Hind and Son's, Dunmore Hind, who with his father Alan, farms 800ha at Elm Tree Farm, near Grantham, Lincs, needs to combine his milling wheat as quickly as possible, despite its moisture content (mc), to retain its quality. The challenging weather during last year's harvest meant that the Hinds' new Mecmar S 40 T mobile drier, had a baptism of fire.

"We probably cut the first 2,000t of our milling wheat at between 18-20% mc, and before that we had cut 400t of oats at 19%. So for 14 days the Mecmar ran constantly!" explained Dunmore Hind.

The new drier, supplied by Sharmans of Stamford and installed by McArthur Agriculture, was the second phase of the Hinds' upgrade of their grain processing capabilities.

"Tom Barker from Sharmans knew that we were looking to make changes to our grain drying and storage facilities and suggested that we talk to the McArthur Agriculture team to work with us on Phase 1 of the development," said Hind.

Following a site visit, McArthur Agriculture designed a system, incorporating the Hinds' old drier, fed by a 12m long Skandia Elevator 60tph I-Line trench intake conveyor housed in an existing building to utilise existing space. The intake is designed with prefabricated component parts, concrete trough sections and pre-fabricated grids make the installation an easy process.

An existing hopper was retained to provide the flexibility of tipping large amounts of grain into the intake or to tip smaller quantities of seed into the drier. From the drier, grain is transported via 3 x 120tph Skandia I-Line conveyors to a purpose-built 3000t grain store.

The design also included a small building, located next to the intake, which enabled the housing of the existing drier but was future proofed to allow for further development.

Phase 1 was up and running and performed well during harvest 2022 but, for harvest 2023 the Hinds were looking at increasing the amount of milling wheat grown so timely harvesting was even more important.

"We realised that we needed to invest in a bigger drier. Following further discussions with McArthur around Phase 2, we purchased a Mecmar S 40 T which was installed together with an additional conveyor giving us additional flexibility to store grain in another shed, in time for harvest 2023," continued Hind.

The Hinds opted to install the latest Mecmar automation control system which features a touchscreen interface with remote access via smartphone or laptop. The control panel now interfaces with a new Mecmar grain moisture probe which automatically tests the grain to ensure unloading can only happen when grain is dry and cool.

If the reading is outside of the predefined settings, then an alert is sent to the operator who is able to control whether the grain should be discharged or if it needs further drying.

Most driers have just one option around the discharge of grain. It is discharged when the right temperature has been reached or, a moisture probe is used to test the mc at the end of drying. Neither option is perfect.

"The new grain moisture probe is a double-check as it uses the temperature of the grain which is then validated by the measurement of the mc. This helps to ensure that grain continuously goes into storage at the optimum mc," said Hind.

"Apart from having to stop the drier to check belt tensions, receiving an alert on my phone or seeing a flashing light on the control panel telling me that the bearings need greasing, the Mecmar just keeps working!" concluded Hind.

About McArthur Agriculture:

McArthur Agriculture is a specialist engineering firm which designs and installs grain processing and storage systems. The company develops, builds and maintains the food and feed processing systems that are a critical step in the food supply chain. McArthur Agriculture works closely with its customers to deliver equipment and turnkey projects that strengthen their businesses and ensures peace of mind. McArthur Agriculture has been a BDC Systems Ltd partner for over 10 years.

For more information visit: https://www.mcarthuragriculture.co.uk/ or call +44 (0) 1724 747110