Weather worries and the need to update often ageing stores meant that this year’s UK Grain Event at Peterborough was a busy place. David Cousins picked some of the new equipment.

BROADWOOD SWEEP

Broadwood International’s new Sweepex Megamax grainstore sweep now has side retainers to hold more grain as it moves along. These extra bristles help move more grain on each pass, says the company, so the job should get done quicker.

Available are 1.5m, 1.85m and 2.4m versions, but the 2.4m unit is expected to be the most popular one. It costs £1,575.

GRAINSAFE SMARTPROBE

The Grainsafe Smartprobe sits in the grain through the season and has bright green, orange and red LEDs that give you a quick idea of the grain temperature without you having to clamber over the heap.

It was invented by a Leicestershire farmer and more than 100 units have been sold since it went on sale in June. An LED module with 2m probe costs £155. The top and bottom parts are detachable so you can buy one LED module (£95) and several 2m (£65) or 4m (£85) probes to keep the cost down.

LISHMAN SILO STRINGS

Dangling a wire with a temperature sensor from the roof of your grain silo or bin is not a new idea, but Lincolnshire firm Martin Lishman has updated the idea to provide an extra facility to its Barn Owl high-tech wireless temperature sensing system.

Called Silo Strings, they hang from the roof of the store or bin and have sensors every 2m along a braided steel core.

Up to eight strings (or a total of 160 sensors) can be routed to a central gateway unit, with the information transmitted wirelessly to the company’s servers and then back to the farm office computer or a smartphone screen. Cost of a 10m string with five sensors is £295.

LASCO BIOMASS BOILER

Using biomass to provide heat to dry grain is pretty common in many parts of Europe but still in its infancy in the UK. However, Dorset firm Westcon was promoting an interesting 250kW furnace from Austrian company Lasco at UK Grain.

It runs on 30mm woodchip, has a 5cu m hopper, an auto-feed system and a flexible tube that takes the heat to a standard on-floor drying system. It can be forklifted into place and the only installation needed is to hook it up to three-phase power and attach the heat delivery tube.

There’s also a smaller 150kW unit that can run for 16-20 hours before the hopper needs refilling. Only one of these furnaces is currently being used to dry grain in the UK but more than 100 have been sold in Europe.

Cost is £29,000 for the 150kW unit and £40,000 for the 250kW version.

SCHMELZER GRAIN VENTILATION TUBE

This clever German Schmelzer telescopic grain ventilation tube, sold by Colchester firm Agro Hanse Trading, is proving a good seller in the UK.

Each section is 2m long and a single perforated tube can be up to 30m in length. A series of these tubes is extended across the floor of the grainstore at 2.5m intervals, with air introduced on one end of the tubes by a fan and venting through a hole at the other end of the store.

What’s clever is that the ventilation tubes can be removed through the side of the store (while the grain is still there) by pulling them out with a centre cable. So the loader and bucket can get the grain out without hitting any obstacles.

Ventilating a typical 100m x 25m on-floor store, with 4m depth of corn, would require 35 pipes of 22m length and cost roughly £63,000.