Farmers Coop Elevator Co.’s grain elevator at Echo, MN (507-925-4126) had become inefficient as southwest Minnesota producers harvested larger and larger crops, according to General Manager Alex Busch.
“It’s hard to compete when it takes 15 to 20 minutes to unload a semi,” says Busch, who became general manager in September 2021, replacing Scott Dubbelde who retired. Prior to that Busch was manager of the oilseeds crush business at CHS.
That year, Farmers Coop undertook several projects to improve efficiency at the facility, which loads up to 25 railcars on the Minnesota Prairie Line railroad:
• The coop tore down two wood houses and one wood annex that had been built in the 1960s and replaced them with a single 680,000-bushel Sukup tank.
The elevator realized a net storage gain of 280,000 bushels, bringing total storage capacity to 1.9 million.
• Two smaller legs, 7,000 and 10,000-bph respectively, with a pair of Schlagel 15,000-bph receiving legs were installed with supporting Warrior structures.
• The coop installed a new 20,000-bph bulkweigher from C&A Scales with related equipment.
• Two new Weightronics truck scales were added.
• Elevator control systems were placed under a Control Stuff PLC-based automation package.
Farmers Coop Elevator hired Elevator Works Inc., Lamberton, MN (507-752-7884), as general contractor and millwright on the 2021 project. “They did very well and paid a lot of attention to detail,” Busch comments.
VAA, LLC, Plymouth, MN (763-559-9100), performed structural engineering on the project.
Construction got underway in March, and the new tank began receiving grain in September. The project was wrapped up in November.
The new Sukup tank is 105 feet in diameter, 84 feet tall at the eave, and 113 feet tall at the peak, with an 8-foot concrete stem wall. Soil conditions required a 10-foot cut and refill system.
The flat-bottom tank is equipped with outside stiffeners, a sidedraw spout, and a GSI X-Series 16-inch zero-entry sweep auger.
There is no grain temperature monitoring system at this time.
A set of four Sukup 20-hp centrifugal fans can deliver 1/10 cfm per bushel of aeration through in-floor ducting in a quad I pattern. The tank has eight 2-hp Sukup exhausters and 35 unpowered Sukup vents on the roof.
The cooperative built a new single-story office building with two adjacent Weightronics 80-foot-long pit-type truck scales.
After weighing and grading, trucks proceed to one of two 1,000-bushel receiving pits.
These feed a pair of Schlagel 15,000-bph receiving legs equipped with 20x8 Tapco low-profile buckets mounted on 22-inch Continental belts.
The 175-foot-tall legs are enclosed in a Warrior 16-foot-x-16-foot-x-160-foot support tower with switchback staircase.
Each leg deposits grain into its own dedicated Schlagel five-duct double Swingset distributor. From there, grain travels out to storage via a Schlagel 15,000-bph drag conveyor.
The distributors also can send grain down to a pair of Warrior 5,900-bushel surge tanks for truck loading or to the rail loadout. In addition, they can reach a 2,900-bushel Warrior tank for screenings.
The new tank empties onto a 15,000-bph Schlagel drag conveyor in an above-ground tunnel, which runs back to one of the two new boot pits.
A Schlagel overhead 20,000-bph drag conveyor carries grain out to a trackside C&A Scales bulkweigher under the control of a Greenstone Systems oneWeigh automation system.
Grain can be run through a Warrior 19,000-bph gravity screener prior to loadout, or the operator can opt to bypass the screener.
Busch comments that the upgrades have resulted in much shorter truck lines during harvest. It takes approximately two minutes to unload grain from a semi, he says.
Ed Zdrojewski, editor
Hanley Falls, MN • 507-768-3448
Founded: early 1930s
Storage capacity: 12-13 million bushels at seven locations
Annual volume: 35 million bushels
Annual revenues: $250 million
Number of members: 1,300
Number of employees: 50
Crops handled: Corn, soybeans, hard red spring and hard red winter wheat
Services: Grain handling and merchandising, feed, seed
Key personnel at Echo:
Aeration fans • Sukup Mfg. Co.
Bin sweeps • GSI
Bucket elevators • Schlagel Inc.
Bulk weigh scale • C&A Scales
Bulk weigh scale controls • Greenstone Systems
Catwalks • Warrior Mfg., LLC
Cleaner • Warrior Mfg., LLC
Contractor • Elevator Works Inc.
Control system • Control Stuff Inc.
Conveyors • Schlagel Inc.
Distributors • Schlagel Inc.
Electrical contractor • Anderson Electric
Elevator buckets • Tapco Inc.
Engineering • VAA, LLC
Fall protection • Fall Protection Systems
Leg belting • Applied Power Products
Millwright • Elevator Works Inc.
Motors • Toshiba International
Speed reducers • Dodge
Steel storage • Sukup Mfg. Co.; Warrior Mfg. LLC
Tower support system • Warrior Mfg., LLC
Truck scale • Weightronics-Vande Berg Scales
