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| The cost of drying varies quite a bit depending on your grain drying system and the cost of fuel.
The energy cost of grain drying is much higher than many people realize.
The attached farm energy calculator is a relatively easy way to estimate total energy use for a farming system including grain drying.
The attached graphic shows the output for a specific grain drying scenario:
200 bu/ac corn
24% moisture dried down to 15%
High temp, air recirculating system
The energy required/ac works out to almost 30 gallons of diesel fuel equivalent.
By diesel fuel equivalent, I mean the amount of propane and electricity needed for this scenario is about the same amount of energy contained in 30 gallons of diesel.
hope that this makes sense.
Moral of the story is grain drying is going to get a lot more expensive if the cost of energy goes up significantly.
Joel
WIU Agriculture
Edited by jbgruver 8/24/2010 13:50
 (GrainDryinggraphic.jpg)
Attachments
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 Energycalculator.xls (149KB - 111 downloads)
GrainDryinggraphic.jpg (62KB - 94 downloads)
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what $ does it take per point to dry corn on farm
