How Long Will A Service Take If I Send It Back During The Harvest?
In any year we receive approximately 400 – 600 instruments for service/repair. The vast majority of those come to us during the harvest period so that over a period of about 2 – 3 months we get anywhere between 200 – 400 instruments. It’s physically not possible to repair all these instruments within a week of receiving them and so turnaround times lengthen.
Much of the work we undertake is due to the lack of maintenance and care of meters and spears. Having paid several hundred pounds for the unit when new, many farmers then proceed to abuse them and do not have them serviced.
They use them to the end of the harvest and put them away, without cleaning them, in leaky sheds until next year, fully expecting them to work when they get them out again when the next harvest begins. A check of the unit in about February or March would probably let you know in plenty of time if it’s going to work, or not, when you need it.
Take advantage of our range of service contracts, which can include a loan instrument whilst yours is away, or the reduced cost service offer we run every year. Please call our Service Centre to discuss your requirements.
Why Do I Get Different Moisture Readings From My Grainspear At The Top Of The Heap To The Bottom
There are two main reasons for this.
- 1. Grain compaction.
- 2. Temperature stability.
If the grain has only just been laid, then the compaction is uneven throughout the depth and will become stable after a few days on the floor or in the bin. You’ll see the readings stabilise as the compaction settles down.
If the grain has been down for some time, then most commonly the GrainSpear hasn’t been inserted into the grain far enough, it really needs to go in for approximately half its length to get an accurate reading.
When the GrainSpear is initially turned on, the first reading it displays is temperature. This is deliberate, as the temperature of the sensor needs to stabilise before a moisture reading is taken. The most common error is for the operator to switch the instrument immediately to moisture before inserting the spear and not allowing the temperature to settle.
What Margin Of Error Should I Allow On Grain I Sell?
That depends on how good your sampling regime is, because sampling is often the biggest source of error in moisture measurement. The more samples you do per load the more confident you’ll be about the accuracy. Typically +/- 0.5% would be a sensible margin of error to use.
Why Does Grain From One Harvest Seem To Give Different Results To The Next?
There are two questions here.
- Is the reading in one year different to a reading in another for the same product?
- Is there great variability within samples from one year but not in another?
If the question is 1), then growing and harvesting conditions will be different year to year and can affect the readings especially with freshly harvested grains. These differences will usually disappear within a week or two once stored.
If the question is 2), then this usually means that something affected the harvesting, such as lodging, sprouting or a high proportion of green grains. Also other things will affect resistance and capacitance readings, such as soil contamination, screenings or other non-grain material. Also ensure that the correct volume of sample is used for testing, the smaller the volume, the greater the error. If you’re not sure what the volume should be, check the instrument user manual or call the Sinar Technology Service Centre.
Don’t be too eager to get the crop in, make sure it’s fully ripe before harvesting as a lot of technical problems are due to unripe seed within the sample, particularly with Oilseed Rape.
