STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Duane A. Lienemann,

UNL Extension Educator, Webster County November 5, 2010 Edition A year ago we were worried about the condition of both soybeans and corn in the bins, if we even had them in the bin because they were too wet! It always amazes me what a difference a year can make. I do not ever remember a fall like this one. It is wonderful for harvesting, putting up electric fence for stalk grazing (although I hear that is not an easy task this year – too dry and hard), and really nice for weaning off those spring calves. Along with the very nice climate has been a very noticeable lack of moisture. By the time area farmers began harvesting their soybeans this fall the moisture level was below 12% and was plummeting, a far cry from last year. The warm dry weather that we experienced sucked the moisture out of soybean pods like a thirsty cow at a stock tank. Typically, farmers avoided harvesting beans in the morning when stems are tougher, but that was the only time of day when the old moisture tester could get any reading out of the sample. We are past that, they are in the bin, what now? Most of the time you are concerned about keeping humidity out of the grain, but that is not a concern in this case. We actually have a lot of beans in the bin under 8% of moisture (I have heard of some as low as 6%), and that could give us some problems down the road. Maintaining soybean quality, particularly including an effort to keep them whole and avoid splitting, is an important function of storage and handling. While your soybeans may be stable right now in the bin, you may be holding your breath to ensure they remain that way. Overly dry soybeans will have a tendency to split and will certainly cost you money when they cross the scale when you decide to ship them. One of your priorities may be to recondition the beans, but keep in mind that adding liquid water to soybeans is a violation of federal law. Not that anybody at the local coffee shop or watering hole has mentioned that. The main thing if even it is in jest, don’t go there. However, that being said, it is possible to increase the moisture in your stored beans over time to recondition them and reduce potential deterioration from splitting. Now of course, Mother Nature will have to lend a helping hand and give us some humidity. If your beans are less than 10% moisture, any humidity above 55% will help add moisture. The best bet is air of 65 to 70% humidity. That may be helped with use of the fan during night hours when humidity is higher, and with a timer on your fan. Most specialists will warn again excessive rewetting through conditioning. Since beans will swell with moisture, too much will jeopardize the bottom rings of your bin and could have detrimental affects on your stored grain. You may want to remember however that it is a slow tedious process, but I do think it will pay off on your settlement sheet. Please be aware that reconditioning time depends primarily on airflow per bushel and weather conditions. It is fastest when airflow per bushel is high and air is warm and humid. Reconditioning will be most successful in a bin equipped as a drying bin - one that has a full perforated floor and a fan that can deliver at least 0.75 cfm/bu. Even with this airflow, it would probably take at least a month of fan operation to move a rewetting front all the way through the bin. If it is available, use a bin equipped with stirring equipment. If stirring equipment is not available, consider transferring the beans to another bin to mix the wet and dry layers if you have both conditions. Consider using timers, humidistats, programmable controllers, or some other type of automatic control to limit fan operation to weather conditions that will cause rewetting. As we approach winter you may want to keep the reconditioned beans cool (20 to 30°F is the suggested winter storage temperature in Nebraska) to reduce chances of spoilage. Speaking of spoilage, watch carefully for signs of moldy beans and for excessive stress on the bin. And keep in mind that you can't run the fan continuously because in a typical fall, continuous fan operation would result in drying rather than rewetting. Attempts to use storage bins equipped with low-airflow aeration systems to recondition crops are usually not very successful - mainly because it just takes too long to move the rewetting front very far into the bin. In my mind the best route is to use common sense and what nature provides. I have received several questions about immature, frosted, or green-colored beans with some of the late planted or longer season beans and with the frost that hit a couple of weeks ago. In the case when frost kills soybean plants before the seeds are fully mature, make sure you remove as much chaff and green plant material as possible when binning the beans. Immature beans can be stored without significant molding, but concentrations of green chaff can lead to heating in storage. Although it is commonly stated that green soybeans will eventually turn yellow in storage, the color change is actually pretty minimal. It might still be worthwhile to store green soybeans for a few months after harvest though, to avoid the high discounts that are applied in years when large quantities of green beans are delivered during harvest. Just make sure that any green beans going into storage are clean, evenly distributed throughout the bin, and cooled as soon as possible after harvest. The lack of late summer and fall moisture not only reflects itself in the condition and quality of our stored beans and corn, it reflects on our hard red winter wheat, fall forages and pastures. We will explore that next week. Don’t forget to turn your clocks. Let’s see – spring ahead, fall back! Could it really be that time of year? The preceding information comes from the research and personal observations of the writer which may or may not reflect the views of UNL or UNL Extension. For more further information on these or other topics contact D. A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator for Webster County in Red Cloud, (402) 746-3417 or email to: dlienemann2@unl.edu or go to the website at: http://www.webster.unl.edu/home