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Bin adds 286,000 bushels of capacity [UPDATED]
Published 10:52am Thursday, July 12, 2012 Updated 11:03am Thursday, July 12, 2012The Farmers Elevator of Fergus Falls will increase its capacity to about 1 million bushels in mid-August with the completion of its latest grain bin. Crews began work on the 286,000-bushel bin in April, and receiving equipment is all that’s left to install.
“It holds just about double what our biggest ones held,” noted elevator manager Tim Schonhardt, who explained that the elevator’s current largest bin holds about 150,000 bushels.
In addition to the main elevator section, the new bin will be the sixth steel holding tank at the facility. The bin was installed to increase storage capacity as farmers’ corn harvests have increased.
“(We’ve seen) increase in corn acres, and usually corn will run … three times as many bushels per acre as wheat or beans,” Schonhardt explained.
I find it odd they were allowed to build such a large bin so close to an existing office building. I realize bins like this rarely fail, but one in Garfield did a couple of years ago!