REGINA – Piles of grain on the ground are becoming a more common sight across Western Canada.
In years where crop yields are high and bin space is tight, wheat, barley and oats often end up on the ground, to be picked up through the winter or next spring.
Getting that grain off the ground and into a truck can be a challenge. That’s where Brandt’s new Pile Driver enters the picture.
Introduced at the Farm Progress Show last week in Regina, this attachment can be mounted on Brandt’s grain vacuums to help farmers clean up their grain piles quickly and efficiently.
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“We’ve been producing grain vacs for a number of years,” said Don Henry, general manager of Brandt Agricultural Products in Regina.
“The grain vac has been a great product for us. It’s very user friendly, very safe, minimizes the dust inside a bin. But what we saw last year, and with the lowering of commodity prices, guys aren’t as inclined to put up permanent storage as they used to be.”
Henry said the standard Brandt Pile Driver, which uses 10 inch flighting and has a seven foot auger, resembles a typical binsweep.
“We found that with the addition of the optional 3.5 foot extension, you minimize the movement of the tractor about 50 percent. When you have a truck alongside, you don’t have to continually move the truck to keep up with the tractor.”
A hydraulically powered orbital motor turns the flighting on the pile driver. A second set of hydraulics controls the position of the auger flighting on the ground.
“You can tilt it to match the contour of the ground where the pile is and also adjust the back shield up or down. You can generally get it to within an inch of cleaning the grain off the ground,” said Henry.
The Pile Driver uses the standard grain vac nozzle. Because the capacity of a vac is greatest with the shortest length of hose, and the Pile Driver delivers the grain from the pile to the nozzle, Henry said the vac ends up moving a lot of grain quickly.
“Basically you’re able to use it in a full bin situation, with a short length of hose and maximum capacity.”
Henry said some producers will use snowblowers on a pile and blow their grain to the auger. Some will use front end loaders on skid steers or tractors, because grain on the ground is difficult to move. If a basic binsweep on the end of an auger is used, it’s not fast and must be moved often.
“We think this is a much more efficient way to do it than using a blower or front end loader. You run the loader into the ground and you’re picking up straw and dirt, mixing that with the grain. This works so much better,” he said.
“It’s hydraulically driven, and raises or lowers from the tractor. You don’t have to get out of the tractor seat, as long as you’ve got a truck beside you that you’re able to fill into. The operator can just sit in the tractor and move forward slowly.”
Henry said when farmers build a grain pile, they tend not to put anything on the ground underneath the grain. When rain or snow falls, they want the moisture to go through the pile and be absorbed into the ground.
“Our engineers say you can set (the Pile
Driver) so it sucks down to within an inch (of the ground). You’ll generally have a little bit of spoilage if it’s outside with no cover on a pile, but it’s the decision of the operator if they want to go back and pick up the rest.”
The Pile Driver attaches to the inlet side of the grain vac. To put it in transport, it folds up and over the front of the machine.
While it could be removed for the summer, Henry said it folds up so neatly it can stay on.
The company hasn’t looked at whether the attachment will work on other grain vacs in the market.
“We haven’t pursued that,” Henry said. “At this point we’ve just designed it for our own grain vac. You can retrofit it to (older) Brandt grain vacs. It’s built to go on the grain vac 5000, but there’s a kit you’d require for a 4500 or 4000 model.
“We’re growing more and more bushels, but unfortunately they’re not worth what we’d like them to be. Are we going to build more storage? Probably not on the cereals side. A lot of it can be stored on the ground and this just makes it a clean, efficient way to pick it up.”
Henry said the factory in Regina will build the first run of Pile Drivers in August and they’ll be available in September. List price for the standard seven foot attachment is $3,495. With the 3.5 foot extension, it will cost $3,995.
