Digital technology helps raise grain quality
Top quality grain is much easier to deliver following the addition of a digital PLC control option to the Continuous Double Flow Drier manufactured by Alvan Blanch Development Company Ltd.
The new control panel further enhances a grain drying system that has operated successfully on farms for many years, by providing improved controllability, simplified adjustment and continual performance monitoring.
"In light of fiercer demands from the food chain for quality assurance and traceability, the PLC control panel, which can also be accessed remotely, ensures that optimum operational efficiency and grain quality is maintained," says company managing director Andrew Blanch.
"The capability for efficient, even drying has long marked out the Continuous Double Flow drier over others - its unique mechanical conveyor principle ensures that all grain is dried for the same duration," Mr Blanch explains.
"Added to this, and the fundamental requirement for a robust and durable machine, we recognise the growing list of considerations when making the long-term investment in a grain drier," he notes. "With climate change and environmental considerations rising steadily in priority, it's important that farm equipment is energy efficient."
The drier offers fuel savings by recycling all the heat from the cooling section of the drying bed, and overall efficiency is improved by the electronic crop follow-on device that allows immediate changeover between crops without emptying and refilling.
"And with the prospects of both warmer UK temperatures and new crop markets opening up, it is worth considering the different crops that are likely to be introduced to rotations in the coming decades," adds Mr Blanch. "Alvan Blanch's drier is designed to handle any type of granular crop in any condition."
Indeed, Hungarian farmers may already be setting the trend in adaptation to new technology and cropping possibilities as Alvan Blanch sees the first of its upgraded machines sold to arable units in Hungary.
