New 788,000-bushel Hoffmann silo at right is the latest addition at the NEW Cooperative elevator in Bode, IA, along with a new receiving pit (far right) at 20,000-bph leg. Aerial photo by JH Photography, Spencer, IA.
Fort Dodge, IA — “Old and worn out” is the way Location Manager Steve Lane describes much of the grain storage and handling equipment on the north side of the tracks at NEW Cooperative’s branch elevator in Bode, IA (515-379-1754).
Lane, who came to Bode in 2020 from another NEW Coop elevator in nearby Humboldt, IA, is happier with the Bode facility now that it has a new 788,000-bushel Hoffmann jumpform concrete silo and a steel truck receiving and loading building right next to it.
Overall storage capacity at Bode, a little under 2.5 million bushels, isn’t much changed from before, since the cooperative tore down an old flat storage building to make way for the new construction. (The elevator receives and ships strictly by truck, even though a Union Pacific branch line runs past the property. Bode ships primarily to NEW Coop’s several feed mills and to ethanol plants near Fort Dodge, IA.)
He especially likes a new receiving pit and 20,000-bph leg between the two new structures, noting that the elevator was in need of more receiving capacity.
“We needed more shipping capacity in the fall,” he says. “We’re using the new silo for soybeans, which frees up a lot of the existing facilities for shipping corn.
“Also, when we receive grain in our new layout, truckers don’t have to cross any tracks to reach the pit. We have plenty of room for them to line up to the north without blocking traffic on city streets.”
To construct the project, NEW Coop worked with C & D Elevator Construction, Dolliver, IA (712-865-2791), as millwright. “They’ve worked on other projects for our company before, and they’ve done really well,” Lane comments.
The cooperative also worked with McGough Construction Co., Fort Dodge, IA (515-576-5004), to build the new receiving/loadout shed.
Electrical work was done in-house utilizing NEW Coop’s own automated control systems.
The project began with demolition of the old flat storage building in March 2020. The new silo was ready to receive soybeans by September, and everything was up and running with the 2020 harvest.
In recent years, NEW Coop has shown a preference for Hoffmann jumpform concrete silos. Prior to Bode, the most recent Hoffmann silo installations for NEW Coop were in 2019 at Blencoe, IA and Duncombe, IA.
The Bode silo stands 98 feet in diameter and 136 feet tall and is rated to hold 788,000 bushels.
The flat-bottom silo is equipped with a sidedraw spout, a 12-inch LeMar power sweep, and a nine-cable grain temperature monitoring system from Tri-States Grain Conditioning, Inc.
A set of six Decatur Aeration 50-hp centrifugal fans can supply 1/10 cfm per bushel of aeration to stored grain through in-floor ducting.
The new receiving/loadout shed adjacent to the new silo includes an 80-foot Rice Lake dump-through scale installed by Siouxland Scales. The scale, which handles both inbound and outbound traffic, is under the control of NEW Coop’s in-house automation system.
Adjacent to the scale are an automatic scale ticket printer and a Gamet Apollo truck probe. The probe sends samples to an office inside the shed, which includes a control workstation and a Perten moisture meter for use in routing grain and determining dockage.
From the dump-through scale, grain travels via 20,000-bph drag conveyor to a 20,000-bph leg equipped with a single row of 20x8 buckets mounted on a 22-inch Tapco belt. The leg has no support tower but rather is attached directly to the Hoffmann silo.
At the top, grain runs through a two-way valve, which feeds either a 20,000-bph overhead drag conveyor running to the new silo or into a gravity chute. A second valve routes grain either to a truck loading spout or onto a 7,500-bph drag conveyor running out to an existing flat storage building.
After stored grain falls below the level of the silo sidedraw, it empties onto an above-ground 7,500-bph inclined drag conveyor running back to the receiving/loadout building. Here trucks parked on the scale are loaded through an overhead spout.
Lane says it takes eight to 10 minutes to load a semi truck.
Ed Zdrojewski, editor
