Abstract
WHEN wheat is too damp for prolonged storing, which is usually true of the home-grown crop in Great Britain, deterioration, accompanied by heating and development of fungi, is commonly observed to occur first in small patches buried in the bulk. These are the wetter portions of the bulk. If all the grain is very damp, heating may spread from these foci throughout the bulk ; but even if this does not happen, development of fungi in such small areas may produce sufficient taint throughout the bulk to make the grain unfit for milling. This experience, common in the storage of English grain, has been confirmed in America by Kelly and others1 by extended storage tests. Consequently, in so far as it is affected by water-content, the storage life of a bulk of grain depends on the maximum water-content at any point, rather than on the mean water-content of the bulk. Hence, for any mean water-content, the maximum storage life is reached when variations from the mean are reduced to a minimum. Such variations are greatest in grain harvested by combine, often because of irregularities in ripening in the field ; but nonuniformity of water-content causes difficulty in storage of grain in Great Britain whatever method of harvesting is used. The variations might be brought to a minimum by thoroughly mixing every load of grain, but this is impossible without large-scale machinery, and even the handling plant of a large modern silo is barely adequate for the purpose. Consequently, it is seldom certain that grain in bulk is of uniform water-content. Nevertheless, mixing and thorough drying of the entire crop are the only methods at present available to ensure that English wheat shall have an adequate storage life. Increasing production is putting an extreme strain on drying facilities ; therefore, an alternative to drying the whole crop is desirable.
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References
Kelly, C. F., Stahl, B. M., Salmon, S. C., and Black, R. H., "Wheat Storage in Experimental Farm-Type Bins", U.S.D.A. Circular No. 637, April 1942.
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OXLEY, T., HENDERSON, F. Automatic Separation of Wet from Dry Grain for Storage. Nature 151, 223 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151223a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151223a0
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