Energy-Efficient Grain Drying Resources

The following is an abstract of an original publication by authors Jeff Schaahczenski, Katherine Adam and Mike Morris, specialists at the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Services.

The ambient air system for grain drying recommended for the United States by The Ohio State University and other grain belt research institutions, as well as the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, is now state of the art and slowly replacing systems using fossil fuels, chiefly natural gas. Although not as much recent research has focused on solar technology for grain drying, solar was shown by University of Maryland studies to be feasible for small- and medium-size facilities for drying grain for on-farm use. Payback time for installing a solar system varies with the cost of fossil fuels and the costs of labor and materials for a solar installation. Resources for evaluating these two systems include links to key sources and a condensation of two reports from the University of Maryland.

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