Ken Somerville said there’s a strategic place for grain bags on his 14,000 acre farm at Eatonia, Sask. – for use as surge storage.
“We’re set up for 30 to 35 bushel storage. We can handle that and put it all into steel bins. When our yields go higher, we run out of bin space,” he said.
“But we have to be realistic. High yields never go on forever, so we’re not about to start spending money on new bins that will sit empty in typical years. Empty bins cost money.
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“As long as we keep going beyond 30 to 35 bu. per acre, we’ll be happy to keep using bags for the extra grain.”
He said the investment in the bagged system is relatively low compared to steel bins.
Somerville got his bagging system halfway through the 2006 harvest, in time to put up 10 bags of grain. He said the Mainero bagger and Akron extractor have been working without a problem. He shares both machines with a neighbour.
“Any problems we had were our own problems. We had a couple of problems at the sealed ends. If you don’t take care of the ends properly, you’ll get mice in there,” he said.
“It only happened on the open end that we seal up, and it only happened on three of the 10 bags. They didn’t tunnel into the grain very far – just stayed at the very end where it didn’t seal up just right.”
He said after one year of using the bags, they have solved that problem.
As of June 14, Somerville said he had four bags left to empty. So far the grain has all come out in good condition, with no signs of spoilage.
