Kapil Arora, Field Agriculture Engineer, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Grain Conditioning School, February 19, 2026

On our program today we're taking some time to visit with Kapil Arora, Kapil with the Iowa State University Extension Outreach and does engineering and good to have you back sir. Good to be back here Jim, thanks for having me on today.

Well we've got, you know last time we visited we were talking about lasagna, we were talking about compaction, compaction issues and I mean others were doing the work on that, you were just helping them get the information out, get the word out.

But this one, you're involved with this one that's coming up here, this is for producers, listen now closely, Grain Conditioning School giving you hands on training to improve stored grain quality. Yes. This is, keep my product in top shape is what I'm thinking.

Well one part of that is in top shape but then also how many times have you heard producers talk about phantom loss or ghost bushels, the bushels that just disappear. So let's get back a little scientific here.

At the base in the market if you have corn less than 15% you don't get any benefit for it. So if you are selling 13% corn that's full two moisture points below what the market accepts. But those two moisture points cause you shrink and you lose bushels.

And you lose bushels, yeah. So on paper if you had 15% moisture corn and when you go to sell it you ain't gonna get as many bushels into whether it's the ethanol plant or whether it's the co-op. Same thing with soybeans.

Soybeans are actually even more sensitive because with dryer faults what we are actually seeing is we get into 8.5% 9% beans at harvest. Now the selling point on moisture for soybeans is at 13%.

Now all of a sudden you have these bushels you may have gone in there in early September and taken some pods and stuff like that and checked how the beans were doing and made estimates on how many bushels you're gonna have. Well guess what? They ghosted you. They're not there.

They're not there. They're not there. Yeah, so I've heard this term quite a bit and trying to find this thing. So for bins of tomorrow is what our team is calling our programming effort. Going forward can you actually rehydrate some of these beans that are sitting in a bin?

Yeah, okay. So if you selectively run your fans, not just run them to cool the bins down, but to selectively run them, can you take credit for high moisture, high humidity in October and November and put some moisture back in? And now natural rehydration is okay.

Artificial rehydration is not okay. You cannot set up a sprinkler in a bin and let the sprinkler... This is not a good idea. Yeah, so you cannot do that or you got beans loaded up in a truck going to town and all of a sudden you take a garden hose and start adding water.

No, you can't do that. That is against the law. That is against the code. That is illegal. You cannot do it. But on the other side, if you run dry air through the bin, you will lose moisture and you lose bushels.

But if you run moist air and the grain naturally carries some of that moisture in, you would actually gain moisture on those bushels. They would in their own absorb it. Yeah, absorb it. Right. Now you got to be watchful. I want to...

I'm guessing you guys have done a lot of work on this. Yes, yes. We have especially because for the school itself, we have sync by Succub, Shivers, then Tri-States, Grain Conditioning, and also got AGI Digital and Brock is also involved.

So as we look towards the future, we want to do things in ways where we can actually take benefit of it to our advantage and actually gain back the bushels which we may lose otherwise. Not just maintain and have a good healthy quality, but also improve the quantity.

So I had one producer over in Hardin County, south of Iowa Falls. And he's got one of these companies system. It's called Shortrack. And on 100,000 bushels, Ben here at 60,000 bushels of soybeans in it last fall. And he pushed them from 9 to 11 percent.

And this is his exact code. The beans rose up almost a ring. I bet. So again, we've got some working models on this. What's happened is you guys have put together a school for producers now. I will say there's a charge for this, but it includes food and other things too.

Tell us a little bit about it. Who all came together to put this together? So the lead from Iowa State's side is Dr. Dirk Meyer. He is a professor in Ag and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State.

But he's also the director of our newly built Kent Feed Mill and Seed Science Complex. I'm right by it on Highway 30. Highway 30 right there, you can see those bins. And they have been doing experiments for the last couple of years right there.

And we want participants to be right there at that complex where we can actually show things to them how to go about doing it. Now if you have a full bin and you try to do it, you will have to be very careful how you do it.

Because as the grain gains moisture, it is going to expand. And that will stress the bin walls. So you have to learn how to do it so you don't create problems otherwise. So there are ways of doing it, not just… You just don't go and start to rehydrate them.

So a lot of hands-on training. I mean this sounds like an opportunity. If you're there, you get to actually see some of the things that you guys are doing or have tried and have worked on.

So when you are going to rehydrate, you need to know the relative humidity and the temperature of the air coming in. Five degrees temperature up and down will make the moisture go either in the grain or out. Harder temperature does not really push the grain moisture in.

So you need to understand how all the sensors are going to be, where all that sensor outlays are going to come out, where the controllers need to be, the apps and the weather data that goes with it to decide when to turn fans on, when to turn fans off.

So there lies the trick in this whole thing is you need to understand all of it. How pre-designed systems do cost and there's a cost to that.

Some other folks have tried to do it with cheaper sensors themselves and if you want to be the controller and run the brains behind the operation yourself, which you can do and some of very smart farmers hands-on, they are able to do that. So all the more power to them.

So it does require a learning curve. It's an all-day school. We're going to run it from 9 a.m. till 4.30 p.m.

We'll give you the science behind some of these things but then switch it over into actually working in small groups, going through some of the bins and our own control room, looking at sensor outputs, understanding what those sensors are saying, incorporating weather data, using the weather data in a predictive manner as to when you should actually be going around doing these things.

So I'm taking this. Should someone be going to this? If they have a system already, they can learn some fine points. It sounds like that. And if you look at a decision on the farm, bins are not a five-year decision. No. They are a 25, 30, 50-year decision.

And as you look towards the future and you try to make the decision, well, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, we were putting up 10,000, 15,000 bushel bins, but now we are putting up 50,000 plus, 100,000, 125,000 bushel bins. So there's a lot of grain in those bins.

There's a lot of money. And the quality needs to be controlled and be good, as well as if we can return some of the investment back to us. I think there is profit to be had. But it's to maximize my investment. Maximize your investment, yes.

So looking down the line, and as we look down, I was just joking at one of the other workshops. We had a few producers. What is the future of AI? And this is one place where I see that AI may come in and handle some of the things where our bins are smart bins.

They are not just there to keep grain in storage, but they are actually working for us in ways that whatever we put in, we get all of that out and maybe even more.

And again, this is one of those here where for someone that might be looking at doing a new bins or something like that, I'm going to make that investment in this. And now what are some of the things I should look at that I can do to maximize that? So here we go.

Let's talk a little bit. You have some limited sign up. You only have so many places available here. And actually, it's even limited because our registration has been open.

We can hold 48 people in the classroom and based on how many groups we are going to divide and the way we're going to run the class, that's about maximum. And we already have 20 people signed up. It didn't take long, did it? So it is about, I would say, 40% for.

It's basically for if they want to find out online, we have the story posted at kwvg.com. But the Brain Conditioning School website, I think, is the easiest way to do it. Just go on there. Or look for bins for tomorrow. Either one of them, it'll get you to our website.

We just did a webinar on Monday. Our webinar is also posted on the same website for bins of tomorrow. I guess we should probably tell them when this is. March 11th. It's going to be on March 11th. So Wednesday. And it will be at the... At the Feed Mill itself.

At the Feed Mill itself. Yes. Again, that's at 1873 State Avenue Ames. And once again... There is a cost to it. It's $100 per participant and that covers refreshments, breaks, lunch, and all the handout materials, online registration.

There's background charges in putting things together. So it covers everything. We request people to get registered by March 4th because then it gives us time to do planning. If you register afterwards, there'll probably be a late fee for it. So do it soon.

Make sure you're lined up too. And should they have any questions? I know they can get a hold of you. Yeah. Call your extension office and they are most likely going to direct you to me. If you want to call me directly, you can call me at 515-291-0174.

Or you can search me online as well and you'll find my information. It's on many pages. If they go to like the Boone County extension, I think it's in there when they show staff. I know they get to you. I know you're in there. And again, this is coming up on March 11th.

So it's one of those, again, my guess is you guys have been working on this for a while to get the support. Yeah, especially after we got the facilities in our hands there and that facility is capable of doing many other things as well.

So we'll be doing more needs assessment and things and brainstorming how we can actually make the same, it's the same grain. You have to have aeration on it, but the fans to put moisture back need to be a little bit bigger. Sure. So there are things that I think we can do.

This producer, as I said, I was talking to, he basically claimed that he was able to recover the cost of the system in one year. Oh. So now if you have the system, every subsequent year is the money we make.

There's another producer over in Muscatine County and his story is on one bin alone, he made $7,000 extra. So it's the same grain. It's just handling it differently, making sure the condition stays good as well as the quantity.

If we can improve that quantity, we can recover more money back to us. Because there are dangers of doing it too much. Yes. You don't want to do it that way. Again, it's a natural hydration of stored grain.

That's really going to be the topic on how you'll be addressing and again, all the learning points to take a look at. And I'm guessing obviously with shivers and sync powered by Succup and Tri-States and AGI Digital and Brock, they'll all be there.

They'll have their systems and actually some of those folks are going to be participants in the school also because they want to learn more as well themselves to steer this thing into the future. So it's going to be one of the new ways to go.

Again, we said maximizing your profit, maximizing what you're spending. So I do appreciate you taking time to come and visit. Once again, it's going to be on March 11th.

It's going to be at Iowa State University's Kent Feed Mill and right off Highway 30 there at 1873 State Avenue. Again, go to Grain Conditioning School website. Limited space available. There is a $100 charge. Get signed up early. Yeah. And pre-registration is required.

Don't just show up that day and expect that. You think you're going to get in. Yeah. Bill, thanks so much for stopping by and giving us an update on this. It'll be interesting and once again, learning experience for even those that have been doing it or trying to do it.

Got some new tips, new things to learn. Yes. And especially the younger generation that's coming on to farm, getting their hands in. Some of these kids are pretty smart whiz kids working with apps and stuff like that. This is right up their alley and going in the right direction.

That's going to invent an app where they will sit in there. They'll sit there and just operate it that way. Yeah. Could be. Could very well be. I do appreciate you coming in. Thanks so much. Thank you. Bill Rohrer, our guest on the program today.