We had an old wood elevator that was beyond its useful life. We wanted to retire that,” says Kris Allen, general manager at Randall Farmers Coop Union.
Allen, who started with Randall Farmers in 2010 as a weighmaster, became general manager in 2015. She was referring to the cooperative’s branch elevator at Jewell, KS (785-428-3444), which has 1.4 million bushels of upright storage and two small temporary storage piles holding 600,000 bushels.
To move grain out of the wood storage, in 2021 Randall Farmers added a 385,000-bushel jumpform concrete tank constructed by McPherson Concrete Storage Systems, McPherson, KS (620-241-4362). The $1.6 million tank, part of a jumpform four-pack, was filled with soybeans after the 2021 harvest, with plans to use it for wheat in 2022. The tank was started in March 2021 and completed in August.
Serving as millwright and general contractor was HABCO, Inc., Salina, KS (785-823-0440).
“HABCO has done all of our projects, and all of our concrete is McPherson,” Allen says. “They know what they’re doing, and they’re close by.”
The new McPherson tank is 72 feet in diameter and 120 feet tall. It is equipped with a sidedraw spout.
The tank has a flat concrete floor, a 12-inch GSI X-Series sweep auger, a 12-cable Rolfes@Boone grain temperature monitoring system, and a Monitor Technologies level monitor.
A set of four AGI Airlanco 40-hp centrifugal fans can deliver 1/10.4 cfm per bushel of aeration on corn and 1/13.8 cfm per bushel on wheat through in-floor ducting, with the assistance of five 2-hp roof exhausters.
Grain reaches the new tank from existing equipment via a new GSI overhead 15,000-bph drag conveyor.
The tank empties onto an above-ground HABCO 7,000-bph screw conveyor, which deposits grain via gravity into an existing receiving pit.
Ed Zdrojewski, editor
Randall, KS • 785-739-2312
Founded: 1915
Storage capacity: 3.6 million bushels at two locations
Annual volume: 3.5-4 million bushels
Annual revenues: $25 million
Number of members: 500
Number of employees: 25
Crops handled: Hard red winter wheat, soybeans, sorghum, corn
Services: Grain handling and merchandising, feed, agronomy, fuels, service station, convenience store
Key personnel at Jewell:
Aeration fans • AGI Airlanco
Bin sweep • GSI
Catwalk • LeMar Industries
Concrete tank builder • McPherson Concrete Storage Systems
Contractor • HABCO, Inc.
Conveyors • GSI; HABCO, Inc.
Electrical contractor • Watson Electric
Engineering • Manley Structural Engineers
Grain temperature system • Rolfes@Boone
Level indicators • Monitor Technologies, LLC
Millwright • HABCO, Inc.
Motors • Siemens Industry Inc.
Speed reducers • Dodge
