CASE STUDY: RICHIE LEES, BARELLAN NSW
Richie Lees’ grain farming operation out at Barellan, in the Narrandera Shire of New South Wales, are long-time clients of Optimum Silos and Optimum Engineering.
Richie has been growing grain for decades, however, it wasn’t until he made the complete switch from livestock to grain that he realised the power a strong, well-manufactured and well-constructed grain silo could provide a grower.
In 2007, the Lees farm decided to get out of farming livestock and, as Richie puts it, “swapped our sheep for grain silos.”
A big factor in making this swap was the flexibility and the options he saw for his farm, based on having a large grain storage facility.
“If you want to sell it, and the market is offering a good price, you can sell it. If you want to hang on and wait for the market to improve, you’ve got that option.”
Richie explained how storing all of one variety of grain he has harvested, together, allows for a much-desired consistency when he is selling the seed to grain millers.
“If they can get consistency throughout what they are milling, that’s extremely important to them.”
Richie’s grain storage operation began with eight, 250 tonne grain silos. In the first year he wisely stored his barley harvest; with the market price of barley failing to climb much that season. The next year, however, the price of barley skyrocketed. Richie chose to sell his stored barley and in turn, got a much better price than he would have if he had to run that grain into town as soon as it was harvested.
“The efficiency at harvest time is fantastic, it’s worth having grain silos just for that. I can’t afford to be running trucks into town and have them sitting and waiting all day. There are no interruptions this way.”
As part of the design and construction of Richie’s set up in Barellan, he challenged the Optimum team to tweak the design of the current industrial unloading auger, to deliver an electric auger that focus on second-to-none safety; with true, zero silo entry.
The Optimum industrial unloading augers features key inclusion such as:
Flat top design, entrenched rather than cast in,
Fully segmented auger flighting, for longer lasting flight wear,
Sweep walker for maximum traction,
Fully hot-dipped galvanised outside the silo.
Additional features included the new design include:
A sweep powered from outside the silo,
A unique clutch and drive line system, designed to power the sweep from outside of the silo. This extremely robust design is made to last, and requires zero silo entry,
The ability to adjust sweep heights and slides.
When it comes to silos, a few of Richie’s favourite features about his Optimum-built Cyclone grain silos include the strength and durability of the materials and construction, and the fact that the floor is four inches higher than the walls, providing an extremely effective moisture barrier.
“There’s some great people out in Young to work with too, that will build them for you.”
In wrapping up his discussion about his silos, Richie recounted a situation where he needed to unload a silo from one side, and the silo had the strength to hold the grain, without unloading in the centre hopper.
“I don’t think there are many grain silos that could do that.”