agriculture
Kenton in Illinois
Kenton has had his Dryer Master DM510 for four years. He uses it on his Grain Handler dryer to dry about 250,000 bushels of corn a year.
What convinced you to buy a Dryer Master in the first place?
What I first liked about the Dryer Master was that it has an input sensor as well as an output sensor so it can anticipate changes.
How often do you calibrate your sensors?
I calibrate the input sensor twice a year and the output sensor about every 3 hours of drying time or when there is a bigger change of input moisture or a hybrid change. It seems like different hybrids do test differently.
Do you use DM Mobile? If so, when/how do you use it?
I used DM Mobile for the first full season this year and it gave me the confidence to be away from the dryer and do other things and still know what is going on. It also alerted me to a problem that had arisen one evening after I had gone home.
Have you contacted the Dryer Master Support Centre? What was your experience?
Everyone at the support center has always been extremely helpful with any situation that I have had come up.
Dryer Master Experiences: Jon in Ontario
Jon is relatively new to Dryer Master but he is great example of how moisture control is no longer just for big elevators, and how more and more it is making its way into smaller operations.
Jon has a DM510 system and has had it for 2 seasons now. He added it as a retrofit onto an MC dryer and dries about 300,000 bushels a year of corn and soybeans.
Why did you
buy a Dryer Master in the first place?
We had been having issues with the original controller, the dryer had to be babysat 24/7. With just myself looking after the elevator during harvest it became very necessary to find a controller that I could trust so that I could get some sleep and be functional the next day.
How does the Dryer Master change the way that you dry, or help your drying operations from an operational perspective?
It has given me a lot more confidence in my drying system which allows me focus on other parts of the system which need my attention during the course of the day. Once its up and running I check the calibration once in the morning and once more before I head to the house for the night. With the Dryer Master running I just don’t stress about my dryer anymore.
Did anything surprise you about how your Dryer Master worked when you first used it?
I thought it would be more complicated to run than it is. I was completely comfortable running the system within just a couple of hours. The over the phone support is great, everybody at Dryer Master seems to know the system like the back of their hand.
What drying tips (if any) would you like to pass on to other dryer owners about how to get the most out of their dryer and/or their Dryer Master?
Give the system time to react if you make changes to the settings. 1-1.5 hours depending on how fast the dryer is running. Too many changes in a short period of time will have you frustrated and chasing your tail. Once the Dryer Master is up and running it takes very little interaction to keep it going. Let it work and find something else to fuss over.
Have you found a financial difference in your drying performance using Dryer Master? In what way?
The biggest financial gain for us would be the accuracy that it can discharge grain at the correct moisture. We have noticed that when shipping grain out, our bins are much more even top to bottom, with no wild swings in moisture. Over and under drying used to cost us every year, now its pretty much a non issue.
Do you use DM Mobile? If so how do you use it (phone/PC/home/at night?)
Yes, definitely. This is a huge benefit to my operation. I use it throughout the day from my Iphone, and also at night from my Ipad or Iphone. I can wake up a couple times through the night, see whats happening and get back to sleep. It has made the harvest season mush easier to get through. My days run much smoother because I’m not completely exhausted from being up all night with the dryer.
Dryer Master Experiences: Myron in Illinois
Myron has worked with Dryer Masters systems for over 10 years. He currently uses two DM510s on two Zimmerman 4500 tower dryers, typically drying around 4 million bushels of corn a year. In the first photo you have the DM510’s sitting side by side, along with the printers that Myron makes good use of. The bottom picture shows a slightly unusual sensor placement (the conduit runs to the back of the moisture sensor).
How does the Dryer Master change the way that you dry, or help your drying operations from an operational perspective?
We can generate a printout tape to evaluate the functions over night or during the day. To monitor moisture ranges.
Did anything surprise you about how your Dryer Master worked when you first used it?
The ease of operation.
What drying tips (if any) would you like to pass on to other dryer owners about how to get the most out of their dryer and/or their Dryer Master?
During start up – give it plenty of time to learn and if possible they work the best if you don’t shut down, and run 24 – 7.
Have you f
ound a financial difference in your drying performance using Dryer Master?
Yes, more consistent for moisture blending.
Maintaining Dryer Efficiency: Part One
It may be a bit hard to believe, but we have actually seen cases where a dryer has lost up to 50 percent of its capacity! We don’t want to see this happen to anyone so in this post, and the next one, we will talk a little bit about maintaining dryer efficiency.
Let’s start with the basics. Maintaining maximum air flow is the key to efficient performance. Because drying grain involves hot air passing through the grain, anything that reduces this air flow impacts performance.
With screen dryers, a great deal of moisture is expelled from the top few feet of the dryer. Much of the easy-to-dry product such as fines, broken kernels, chaff (red dog or bees wings) loses the bulk of its moisture here. These particles then tend to get pushed through the screen to the outside where they build up as a wet mess and stick to and plug the screens—thereby reducing air flow.
Over time, this wet section will steadily move further and further down the dryer as the screens in the higher portion above it plug up. This process gradually reduces the effective capacity of the dryer, and when drying capacity is lost, drying efficiency is reduced.
One way to slow this process is to clean the product ahead of drying. This will reduce the broken, fines, and red dog (bees wings) which tend to plug the screens.
Celebrating 30 Years of Dryer Master
When we say Dryer Master is the “premiere online moisture measurement and moisture control technology,” we mean it. From the beginning, we at Dryer Master have steadily improved and enhanced our technology to keep it on the leading edge. We’re proud to say we’ve now been serving customers for three decades—that’s right, this year, we’re turning the big 3-0.
We’re not shy about our age—in fact, we’re more than happy to talk about where we’ve come from and how we’ve grown since 1983. We began by controlling moisture in the drying process for corn, a notoriously difficult process to control. By helping our customers dry more product closer to target, we were able to help them experience real savings in dollars and quality. With this success, we expanded the application of our moisture measurement and control technology to other processes including manufactured food and feeds. This proved to be an important step for our business, and our capabilities—and it paid off.
As our focus has grown over the years we have continued with a tradition of innovation. And as we have learned more about the drying process, and as technology has evolved, our systems have evolved as well. We now have control and monitoring systems that can be integrated into dryer control panels or plant-wide systems or accessed via the web.
We’re currently working on the next generation of Dryer Masters, and you can be assured that we will be building in all of the latest technology to provide the kind of access and quality of control that have made Dryer Master the trusted name in drying control for 30 years. It’s safe to say we have an incredible future ahead of us, and we thank you, our customers, for making our 30th birthday a memorable and exciting one.
How Fertilizer Makes a Difference in Agriculture
At Dryer Master, our products function to monitor grain in the agricultural industry. Most of the time, we see the crops after they’ve been harvested and are in drying containers, but we still are aware of the entire process it takes to get a grain from ground to dinner table. Regardless of whether a farmer is growing corn or coffee beans, each plant starts as a seed that needs to be nourished.
Farmers are aware of a delicate chemical balance needed in the soil to ensure the health of crops. Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are essential to plant health, and since they’re free-flowing in the air, there’s no need to worry. However, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are equally as important, but they usually need to be added to existing soil through fertilizer.
Without the balance, a plant does not get its essential amino acids, nutrients, and energy. Each mineral has an important role in crop growth:
- Nitrogen aides in processing carbohydrates, which builds new tissue, and also spurs protein creation.
- Phosphorus assists in producing oxygen and sugar.
- Potassium helps with moisture absorption and food metabolizing.
This supply of concentrated chemicals provides plants with the necessities to quickly grow, which is essential for the agricultural industry, but all fertilizers aren’t created equally.
A quick check of the label typically shows three numbers on a package (such as 20-17-10) to display the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium mineral balance. The amount of these nutrients needed varies between crops, and it’s up to the farmer to test the pH balance and figure out what the plant needs. Too much fertilizer can be a bad thing—especially with Nitrogen. If there’s too much, the plant will be heavy and have difficulty growing upright, but if there’s too little, the plant will grow weak and be unable to fully absorb water.
Most manmade fertilizers comes as pellets, powders, or liquids, and as long as the soil is enriched and healthy, the end result will be up to par. At Dryer Master, we think it’s important to know every aspect of the industry, and if you want to learn more about us and our products, head over to our website.
How Canada’s Agricultural Edge Is Securing a Strong Future
Canada has the eleventh-largest economy in the world, which means its industries are wealthy and strong—but not without stiff competition from across the globe. While the country has major logging, oil, energy, forest, and mining industries, one undoubtedly sticks out among the rest: agriculture. In the past decade, Canada’s agricultural industry net worth increased by 78 percent, and many outlets credit global demand and innovation as to why the sector is seeing such great success.
Following the second-largest harvest on record in 2012, Canadian exports are driving revenues up for the long term. The global population is growing, which means demands on agriculture are nothing but a positive for Canada—especially as consumers lean toward high-quality, organic, and halal products found primarily in North America.
Canada’s gross output quadrupled in the past five decades because technology, consolidation, and management innovations propelled and expanded the industry. The current exports and imports of the country are valued at between $31 and $41 billion, and as long as the global reliance on the Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector increases, there’s nothing but higher numbers in the future.
Dryer Master is a prime witness to Canada’s growth in the agricultural sector. Our headquarters are in Ontario, but our moisture measurement and control technology benefits companies in China and the Midwestern U.S. Since 1983, we have seen a steady growth in companies who need our technology to dry a range of products from coffee beans and grains to pet food and powders. Despite our customers’ rapidly changing technology and processes, our systems can adapt to whatever job they need completed, and we couldn’t be happier to assist the booming industry.
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