FARGO, N.D. – Lisa Grengs and her family farm 30 to 60 kilometres from the nearest elevator, depending on the field.
“We had been wasting so much time and fuel running in samples for moisture testing, it was maddening, especially with these fuel prices we have to live with,” Grengs said.
If that sounds like a typical prairie farm scenario, it is. But it’s not from the Canadian Prairies. It’s from North Dakota, where elevators have disappeared at the same rate as on the Canadian side of the border.
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Lisa and her husband Greg farm about 3,800 acres near Sherwood, N.D., just a few kilometres south of the Canadian border. Lisa said their situation is similar to that of farmers north of the 49th parallel.
“When you go to the trouble of loading a truck and then get turned around because of moisture, that’s a lot of time and money down the drain,” she said.
“Those plastic hand-held meters let us down and gave us wrong readings so often. Finally, last year, we decided we just had to do something about it.”
What they did was launch an extensive search for the most accurate grain moisture meter they could find.
They knew the only way to eliminate those wasteful trips was to buy a meter that was as accurate as those in the elevator. After looking at every hand-held moisture meter they could find, they turned their focus to the moisture meters the grain elevators were using.
Most of the elevators in the Sherwood area were equipped with Motomco 919 meters. They are the stationary blue meters commonly found in grain elevators and first introduced by Tony Motomco more than 20 years ago.
They require periodic calibration, and like an old radio, they used tubes rather than solid-state circuitry.
The 919’s lack of portability was a negative factor because along with elevator accuracy, the Grengs wanted a portable meter they could take to the field to test right off the combine.
Their search led them to the Shore company in Illinois. It had taken over the original Motomco 919 line, fully re-engineered the meter and added a portable tester to the product lineup.
The upgraded moisture meter is called the Shore 920. Although it uses the same sensitive probe as the 919, everything else has been brought up to modern technological standards.
The tubes have been replaced by solid-state circuitry with a removable chip that eliminates the need to re-calibrate. It runs on six AA batteries, which last a full harvest season. It also can be used with 110 volt. It has an LCD display screen and handles commodities with moisture ranging from six to 40 percent.
Electronics makes the unit highly portable, Grengs said.
“We can set it up on the tailgate of the pickup right next to the combine,” she said.
“If you want to check the monitor on your combine, you can zero it in with the 920. We’re always within a tenth of a percent up or down from the elevator readings, but you’ll get that kind of slight variation just driving from one elevator to the next.”
She said the 920 is easier to use than the 919 because it automatically takes the ambient air and grain temperatures and makes all the necessary corrections. They have found that it will handle grain from Ð6 C to 70 C, which means it can be used with a grain dryer.
In a demonstration, Grengs tested a sample of hard red spring wheat. The whole process took less than three minutes. She said there is no need for conversion charts or mathematical calculations.
“When we switch the power on, the screen runs through all the possible crops grown in North America. I’ll select hard red spring wheat today. The display tells us it wants a 250 gram sample, and that has to be exactly 250 grams.”
As Grengs weighed the sample, she said the 920 test kit comes with a digital scale that measures up to 600 grams. It detects a single kernel of grain so it’s not difficult to achieve the perfect 250 gram sample.
“I pour the sample into the top of the cylinder, press the test button and wait. It takes from five seconds to 25 seconds to get the reading. The display screen tells us this grain is 43 F (6 C) and 13.1 percent moisture. Now, you can take this sample to an elevator and they’ll give you a reading from13 percent up to 13.2 percent.”
After using the 920 on their own farm last fall, the Grengs decided other farmers could benefit from the machine, so they made the necessary business arrangements with Shore and began selling the units from their farm this year.
The Shore 920 kit sells for $825 US, including the meter, the Scout II digital scale and padded metal carrying case for transport and storage, and carries a one-year warranty.
“About the only thing that can go wrong is a chip malfunction. If something like that happens, just phone us or phone the factory direct and we’ll have a new chip on the way out the same day. Same thing for factory upgrades. Every time Shore builds a better chip, every owner gets the new chip free. Last year they added flax, mustard, peas, lentils and crambe. Every 920 owner received the new chip with all the upgrades and additions.”
The Grengs can be reached at their Sherwood farm at 701-459-2709 or 701-263-7397.
