Many grain handling facilities that have been around for more than a couple of decades eventually have portions of the site that have become obsolete and difficult to operate.
That was certainly the case at the Glacial Plains Cooperative’s headquarters elevator in Murdock, MN on the highway between Willmar and Benson in the west central part of the state.
“We had an old wood annex, and adjacent to that, a couple of steel silos and a concrete silo,” says Craig Kavanagh, grain division manager for the cooperative.
Kavanagh came to Glacial Plains after finishing college at Southwest MN State in Marshall in 2007 and took over his present position in July 2021 – which had been held by his father, Douglas, who retired.
The solution for Glacial Plains in 2021 was a bushel-for-bushel switch. The old storage was demolished. Then it was replaced with a new 515,000-bushel Hoffmann jumpform concrete silo constructed at the east end of a row of concrete silos.
“The new space is so much better for operating and maintaining grain quality in storage,” Kavanagh says.
Total storage capacity at Murdock remains roughly the same at 5.9 million bushels.
In addition to the new storage, the cooperative added a second truck scale adjacent to the older scale and the facility office building. The new scale serves outbound traffic.
Glacial Plains brought in a demolition crew, a business operated by Forest River Colony and Salvage in April 2021 to perform the demolition and cleanup work on the old storage.
For the new storage construction, the cooperative hired Walt Johnson Construction, Alexandria, MN (320-763-9005), as general contractor and millwright.
“We liked their thorough approach to the project and their emphasis on safety and making sure everything was OSHA-compliant,” Kavanagh says.
The new silo was constructed by Hoffmann Inc., Muscatine, IA (563-263-4733).
CHS’ in-house construction division, under the leadership of Jim Gales, designed the project, led contractor procurement efforts, and performed construction management.
Construction on the roughly $4 million project began as soon as the site was ready following demolition. The silo was completed and ready to receive grain by Sept. 10.
The new Hoffmann jumpform concrete silo is 74 feet in diameter and 140 feet tall.
The flat-bottom silo is outfitted with a sidedraw spout and a Brock Maverik® 4000 Series 12-inch hydraulic single arm sweep auger rated at 7,500 bph.
There is no grain temperature monitoring system, however. “This is one of the first silos to fill at harvest, and it’s one of the first to move grain out,” says Kavanagh.
A set of four Chicago Blower 50-hp centrifugal fans supplied by Decatur Aeration provide 1/10 cfm per bushel of aeration through in-floor ducting.
The new silo can be reached from three separate receiving pits through existing equipment, and grain is carried to the silo via a GSI overhead drag conveyor.
The silo empties onto a GSI 12,500-bph drag conveyor in an above-ground tunnel. This conveyor takes grain back to an existing leg.
During the construction project, crews also expanded an existing receiving pit from 150 to 500 bushels. The pit opening now measures 30 feet long by 10 feet wide. “The aim is for one-stop dumping,” Kavanagh comments.
Elsewhere on the property, Glacial Plains had a second truck scale installed adjacent to the first. The new pitless Webster Scale unit measures 12 feet wide by 80 feet long. It is outfitted with a scale ticket printer the driver can reach from inside the cab and digital weight readouts but for now remains manually operated.
“The plan is to install a Kahler automation system, which will interface with our existing AgVance grain accounting software,” says Kavanagh.
Ed Zdrojewski, editor
Murdock, MN • 320-875-2811
Founded: 1907
Storage capacity: 14.65 million bushels at five locations
Annual volume: 21-25 million bushels
Number of members: 400
Number of employees: 80
Crops handled: Corn, soybeans
Services: Grain handling and merchandising, feed, , agronomy, energy, convenience store
Key personnel at Murdock:
Aeration fans • Chicago Blower via Decatur Aeration
Bin sweeps • LeMar Industries
Catwalk • in house
Concrete silo builder • Hoffmann Inc.
Contractor • Walt Johnson Construction, Inc.
Conveyors • GSI
Demolition • Forest River Colony
Electrical contractor • Freetly Electric Inc.
Engineering • VAA, LLC; CHS Construction Division
Millwright • Walt Johnson Construction, Inc..
Motors • Toshiba International
Speed reducers • Dodge
Truck scale • Webster Scale Inc.
