Timely storage tips

Factors that elevator storage risk: High moisture, hot seed, high green, dockage, weed seeds can all elevate the risk of canola in storage. Read more.

Tips for drying tough and damp canola. The ideal canola seed moisture for safe long-term storage is 8%. The spoilage risk is much higher for tough or damp canola. Natural air drying (NAD) using aeration fans with adequate airflow can work as long as air has capacity to dry. NAD for tough or damp canola is not usually effective under late fall conditions when canola and outside air are both cold. In these conditions, reaching dry equilibrium moisture levels often takes too long to avoid spoilage in many cases. But you do have options. Read more.

Fan limitations in large bins. Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) studied air movement through a 25,000-bushel bin. With canola, they found that a standard, single phase 10-hp centrifugal fan could not push air through canola when the bin was full. In fact, the threshold for that bin seemed to be about 17,000 bushels. Read more.

Dig deeper:

Questions about handling high-moisture canola
CGC safe storage ‘risk charts’ for all crops