Adding Value
To Your Crop
• Optimizing Yield
​
• Grading Seed
​
• Removing Disease
​
• Separating Foreign Material
​
Optimizing Yield Adds Value
When wheat seed is cleaned and sorted using an AGS Grain Separator, the resulting increase in yield will be obvious. Seed from the 2nd fraction was used to plant on the left side of the red dotted line. Notice the better germination, more vigor, healthier, more uniform stand on the left.
​
So how can farmers boost the germination rate? It's simple. Get the best seed you can and separate out the highest test weight kernels before planting. This results in higher yields, faster and more uniform maturity, better resistance to diseases, and maximum profit.
​
Separating wheat for seed with a AGS Grain Separator will sort out the highest quality seed with the heaviest test weight. This results in the following benefits:
• Germination is uniform and is viable up to 98%
• Uniform crop maturity up to a week earlier
• Healthier crop with better disease resistance
• Yields increase up to 40%
​
Get your germination right by using only the best seed. A bad germination rate can result in an inefficient crop growing cycle, with seed that becomes too expensive to use, poor germination, and reduced yields. Thorough cleaning and separating before planting will improve the germination rate. Every year, farmers produce billions of pounds of grain, but only one pound out of 20 will be good enough quality grain to use for seed. Sort out your own seed with a proven grain separator will increase your yield!
That’s why every farmer should have their own grain cleaning and separating machine.
​
Our grain cleaning machines will separate both the light and heavy impurities as well as grade the thin, light inferior seeds from the plump, high quality seeds all in one single pass. This is important because planting the most viable seeds will improve yields up to 40%, has an improved germination rate of up to 98%, and harvesting costs can be decreased by up to 20%.
If no separation is done before planting, an average 10% (6-14%) of the seed will not germinate and if it does germinate, it will grow poorly. Fertilizer applications and other field passes will be wasted. This is wasting planting, fertilizing, and harvesting costs plus wasted time for farming 100 acres out of every 1,000 because inferior seed was planted.
​
​
Grading Seed Before Planting Adds Value
Grading a grain crop and selling the best quality seed will bring a premium price. Grading out the heaviest, healthiest seed can be accomplished by performing a hard separation. Increasing the air flow will cause the lighter seeds, which are often the malnourished or diseased seeds to be separated from the healthiest, plumpest seeds having the highest test weight. Premium prices can be obtained for high value grain. The lighter seeds along with the other winnowings are often used for feed or cleaned again at a different setting and sold as a lower grade grain.
​
Cleaning wheat for seed with just a gravity table may still leave 10% of splits and light or damaged kernels in the seed which will not germinate. That translates to 100 acres wasted for every 1,000 acres planted or 1,000 bushels of trash seed for every 10,000 bushels of viable seed. It is a waste of money, labor, and other resources to treat seeds, fertilize and farm 10% of your acres unless these non-viable seeds are removed.
Removing Disease From Grain Adds Value
Quality standards vary for cleaning grain depending on its end use. Harmful fungus and toxins such as vomitoxin, aflatoxin, fusarium, and ergot is harbored mostly in the chaff, the cracked kernels, and light malnourished seeds. These diseases can easily double in a month when stored in slightly damp conditions. Removing this part from the good grain will lower the infection rate. The air flow through the grain will help dry down a high moisture crop. Cleaning tests with popcorn and spelt were conducted and the results tested by a certified lab. The popcorn was infested with a vomitoxin level of 11.2 which is unusually high. The spelt tested at 1.5 vomitoxin. After one pass through a WS grain cleaner, the popcorn tested at 1.8 and the spelt tested at 0.7.
​
As an example, in a recent year a 10,000 bushel wheat crop having a 7 ppm vomitoxin level was valued within a range of $3.00 to $3.50.
10,000 X $3.25 = $32,500 This is something to frown about.
​
If the crop is processed through an AGS Grain Separator or a WS Grain Cleaner, the VOM level can be reduced to below 2 ppm. This will increase the market value of the cleaned wheat to $6.50 to $7.00 per bushel. Considering an average 10% (5 to 15%) of the grain (cracks, splits, thin and light malnourished seeds) was removed, and taking the average price offered, the results would be:
9,000 X $6.75 = $60,750 Added profit by removing disease = $28,250
This is something to smile about.
​
​
​
​
​
​
Cleaning Grain Adds Value
Cleaning foreign material out of a crop before selling will reduce dockage. No one wants to pay for trash in grain. Cleaning out foreign material before selling will avoid being docked for the market price of your crop. This can be disappointing when the price you are paid for your hard work is lowered because your crop was dirty.
​
​
Four Ways To Add Value To Your Grain Crop
• Optimize Yield
• Grade For Seed
• Remove Disease
• Clean Grain
​
​
Investment Has A Short Payback
The Return On Investment (ROI) for purchasing an AGS Grain Separator or a WS Grain Cleaner is short and can sometimes be reached after only a few hours of use!
It is easy to increase the value of your crop such as one farmer did in Saskatchewan. In 2016, he had 6,000 bushels of wheat that was contaminated with a high level of Fusarium fungus. It was rated as a grade 3 grain which was unfit for food or feed. The most that he was offered was $2.50/bu. Since the fungus consumes the inner part of the kernel, the thins, the lights, the cracks, and the fines are the most susceptible to disease infection. After cleaning the grain with a WS machine, the infected part of the grain was removed and was then upgraded to a grade 1. The offer on the wheat was $6.60/bu. This price difference was $4.10 per bushel. Considering that an average 10% of the crop was removed as rubbish, this amounted to an added value to his crop of over $22,000. His Breakeven Point on the cost of the machine was reached in just a few hours of use.