Published
by Farmers Guide, October 2008
New dryer is a project to be proud of
A ONCE in a lifetime investment for the farmer, is how Roger Fairs, of Tey Farm Systems, describes the new grain intake and dryer his company installed at White Colne, Essex, earlier this year.
The project - carried out for his father and brother's company, HJ Fairs & Son - consisted of a new steel-framed building that houses a 200t grain reception area and a 46t/hr continuous flow dryer, as well as all the associated equipment. Tey Farm Systems was responsible for every aspects of the project from the initial planning to the groundwork and the installation of both the fixed equipment and the control systems.
This year has been the busiest yet for Tey Farm Systems, with a good number of buildings going up and drying floors being installed, as well plenty of upgrades to existing grain handling facilities; but for Roger, the big dryer stands out.
"You don't do many projects like this during your career," he said, "farmers have tended to prefer on floor drying, and in any case there are few set-ups that can justify an installation of this size."
HJ Fairs & Sons, however, is confident that the new drier is just what the business needed. Growing about 2,200 acres of wheat each year on its own land, and on units farmed under share-farming agreements, the business runs three combines that need to be kept moving.
"The farms are spread all over," Peter Fairs, of HJ Fairs & Son, told Farmers Guide. "There's land at Marks Tey and at Braintree, and some of them have limited storage. Having the dryer here means we can cut the crop and leave it piled on pads near the fields, then bring it back for drying at our leisure."
The new dryer also means the business can sell grain early to take advantage of premiums.
"Knowing the new dryer was going in, we sold quite a lot of grain for early August delivery and got a good premium," Peter added. "About 1,500t had gone by August 10."
With about 8,000t of wheat to deal with and only storage for 3,000t at the dryer complex, HJ Fairs & Son needs to sell the bulk of its grain almost straight from the field. Although there is some storage available on a few of the farms, the cost of transporting the grain to the new facility is far outweighed by the premiums paid this year for dry grain.
"The flexibility of the new set-up means the dryer can handle just about anything we throw at it," Peter said. "This season it has dried grain from 15-26% moisture so far. We just pile it up in the reception area and dry grain comes out at the other end, either into one of our two storage sheds or straight into a bulker.
"The high throughput means we can load a lorry in less than an hour straight from the dryer, or if the grain is wet and taking longer to dry, we can load from the store. Either way we can comfortably meet our contracts and are able to take advantage of premiums where they are available."
Family ties
Although Roger was working for his father in delivering this project, it was carried out on a fully commercial basis and, Roger admits, it was still challenging at times.
"The customer requirements for this job were just about the most complicated I've worked on," he said. "With an investment of this size, you have to get it right and the plans were redrawn six or seven times to make sure we could deliver everything that was needed.
"It's only now, when the plant is fully operational, that we can say there are no major snags. And even more telling, if we were to do the job over, we'd probably do the same again."
A tremendous amount of thought went into the project. Essentially, it consists of a four-burner Svegma drier hooked up to Skandia elevators for grain intake and output inside a 12m tall AC Bacon building, but there's more to it than that. For example, the drier sits on a floor 1.5m below ground level - level with the bottom of the intake pit - so that all the grain handling equipment is easily accessible for maintenance.
As the cost of bringing sufficient mains electricity to the site proved extremely expensive, the dryer room also houses a diesel-powered generator to provide all the power for the installation. Only the lights and a couple of roller-shutter doors run from the National Grid.
The control system for the drying plant has been made as user friendly as possible. The dryer controls are more-or-less automatic and will make any necessary adjustments to provide dried grain of the required moisture content, while the grain outlet options have also been made as easy as possible. There are 10 preset routes for grain movements, chosen from a simple switch on the control panel. As long as the plant's four valves are in the correct position, the system will start up in sequence to begin work.
The drying plant can also be left to shut down on its own, allowing the intake area to be left full for the dryer to process overnight. Once the job is complete it will send a text message to a mobile phone to say it has finished and shut down - even to the extent of closing the roller-shutter door that opens to allow sufficient airflow for the dryer. A text message is also sent should any problems arise in the drying process.
Peter Fairs admitted the investment in the new intake and drying plant could be likened to the cost of a top-flight, high-capacity combine, but he is confident it will be worth it.
"If we were to put all our grain through a central-storage co-op, we'd be looking at an initial outlay of about £100/t just to join, then there would be haulage and drying costs, not to mention the lost interest on the cash we'd handed over," he said. "I recognise that we might not even need to use the dryer every year, but it's an investment we plan to write-off across 15 years and it should work for a lot longer than that.
"This year it allowed us to start harvest on July 28 and there are many parts of the country that couldn't match that. It also means that we can keep our combines running when others have been forced to stop, and with the climate looking so uncertain, that's a major advantage."
 |
|
The
new intake and dryer building was constructed at the rear of
an existing on-floor store. It is large enough for tractors
and trucks to tip-and-go. The controls for the facility are
housed in the easily secured container to the right of the building.
|
New dryer is a project to be proud of
A ONCE in a lifetime investment for the farmer, is how Roger Fairs, of Tey Farm Systems, describes the new grain intake and dryer his company installed at White Colne, Essex, earlier this year.
The project - carried out for his father and brother's company, HJ Fairs & Son - consisted of a new steel-framed building that houses a 200t grain reception area and a 46t/hr continuous flow dryer, as well as all the associated equipment. Tey Farm Systems was responsible for every aspects of the project from the initial planning to the groundwork and the installation of both the fixed equipment and the control systems.
This year has been the busiest yet for Tey Farm Systems, with a good number of buildings going up and drying floors being installed, as well plenty of upgrades to existing grain handling facilities; but for Roger, the big dryer stands out.
"You don't do many projects like this during your career," he said, "farmers have tended to prefer on floor drying, and in any case there are few set-ups that can justify an installation of this size."
HJ Fairs & Sons, however, is confident that the new drier is just what the business needed. Growing about 2,200 acres of wheat each year on its own land, and on units farmed under share-farming agreements, the business runs three combines that need to be kept moving.
"The farms are spread all over," Peter Fairs, of HJ Fairs & Son, told Farmers Guide. "There's land at Marks Tey and at Braintree, and some of them have limited storage. Having the dryer here means we can cut the crop and leave it piled on pads near the fields, then bring it back for drying at our leisure."
The new dryer also means the business can sell grain early to take advantage of premiums.
"Knowing the new dryer was going in, we sold quite a lot of grain for early August delivery and got a good premium," Peter added. "About 1,500t had gone by August 10."
With about 8,000t of wheat to deal with and only storage for 3,000t at the dryer complex, HJ Fairs & Son needs to sell the bulk of its grain almost straight from the field. Although there is some storage available on a few of the farms, the cost of transporting the grain to the new facility is far outweighed by the premiums paid this year for dry grain.
"The flexibility of the new set-up means the dryer can handle just about anything we throw at it," Peter said. "This season it has dried grain from 15-26% moisture so far. We just pile it up in the reception area and dry grain comes out at the other end, either into one of our two storage sheds or straight into a bulker.
"The high throughput means we can load a lorry in less than an hour straight from the dryer, or if the grain is wet and taking longer to dry, we can load from the store. Either way we can comfortably meet our contracts and are able to take advantage of premiums where they are available."
Family ties
Although Roger was working for his father in delivering this project, it was carried out on a fully commercial basis and, Roger admits, it was still challenging at times.
"The customer requirements for this job were just about the most complicated I've worked on," he said. "With an investment of this size, you have to get it right and the plans were redrawn six or seven times to make sure we could deliver everything that was needed.
"It's only now, when the plant is fully operational, that we can say there are no major snags. And even more telling, if we were to do the job over, we'd probably do the same again."
A tremendous amount of thought went into the project. Essentially, it consists of a four-burner Svegma drier hooked up to Skandia elevators for grain intake and output inside a 12m tall AC Bacon building, but there's more to it than that. For example, the drier sits on a floor 1.5m below ground level - level with the bottom of the intake pit - so that all the grain handling equipment is easily accessible for maintenance.
As the cost of bringing sufficient mains electricity to the site proved extremely expensive, the dryer room also houses a diesel-powered generator to provide all the power for the installation. Only the lights and a couple of roller-shutter doors run from the National Grid.
The control system for the drying plant has been made as user friendly as possible. The dryer controls are more-or-less automatic and will make any necessary adjustments to provide dried grain of the required moisture content, while the grain outlet options have also been made as easy as possible. There are 10 preset routes for grain movements, chosen from a simple switch on the control panel. As long as the plant's four valves are in the correct position, the system will start up in sequence to begin work.
The drying plant can also be left to shut down on its own, allowing the intake area to be left full for the dryer to process overnight. Once the job is complete it will send a text message to a mobile phone to say it has finished and shut down - even to the extent of closing the roller-shutter door that opens to allow sufficient airflow for the dryer. A text message is also sent should any problems arise in the drying process.
Peter Fairs admitted the investment in the new intake and drying plant could be likened to the cost of a top-flight, high-capacity combine, but he is confident it will be worth it.
"If we were to put all our grain through a central-storage co-op, we'd be looking at an initial outlay of about £100/t just to join, then there would be haulage and drying costs, not to mention the lost interest on the cash we'd handed over," he said. "I recognise that we might not even need to use the dryer every year, but it's an investment we plan to write-off across 15 years and it should work for a lot longer than that.
"This year it allowed us to start harvest on July 28 and there are many parts of the country that couldn't match that. It also means that we can keep our combines running when others have been forced to stop, and with the climate looking so uncertain, that's a major advantage."
© 2008-2012 Graemetic Ltd