A useful luxury that every farmer dreams of is the ability to store his own grain. During harvest time, your trucks no longer need to cover long distances to the silo or wait for ages in long lines while your combines lose valuable time.

You can also store your own grain on your own farm as long as you want free of storage charges, and decide for yourself when the price is right to sell it.

GSI is one of the most renowned silo manufacturers in Southern Africa, but their silos have been designed in America for many years. The experience and expertise accumulated over many years make them a market leader in the field. Every part is meticulously manufactured before shipping. The sheets are made of galvanised steel, and not zinc as it may appear. The centre point of the roof of a GSI silo can carry a weight of five tonnes! It is easier than you thought to erect a GSI silo or two. The farmer may choose his own contractors to construct the pit and foundations, or he can request GSI to appoint someone.

GSI’s technical staff will train the people on the farm. As soon as the concrete works are completed, GSI’s team will erect the steel works within 2,5 weeks.

 

Francois Louw from the farm, Uitsicht, on the South African Highveld, could erect two 1 500 silos with an intake and extraction speed of 60 tonnes per hour: “First, I contacted Jaco Barnard, Area Manager for the region. He supported and guided me through the whole process. GSI’s service leaves nothing to be desired. The silos were completed during the last part of the harvest season, and I could fill one of them. The maize will remain there until I can sell it at a favourable price,” he says.

Francois chose flat floored silos with false, perforated floors.

One extractor auger with three openings was placed beneath the floor to extract grain. GSI’s silos are designed to get rid of moisture. Three blowers underneath the floor evenly blow any moisture through the whole silo to the top. All around the silo there are openings, called drip lips, between the roof and the wall, and as moisture escapes from the grain, it condensates against the roof and runs through the openings and down the outside walls of the silo. “When you see moisture on the ground around the silo, you may know that everything is well,” Jaco Barnard says. Every second or third season, the false floor is lifted to clean out the dust.

The lower wall sheets carry more weight, therefore they are thicker and stronger. In order to cut back costs, the upper walls are progressively thinner and lighter, but this does not hamper the structural strength at all. The pillars supporting the roof are also thicker towards the bottom to withstand lateral pressure. Niels Erichsen from the farm, Keerom, near Middelburg, has a contract to supply a chicken farm with yellow maize, however they do not have the capacity to take in all the maize during the harvesting season.

“In the past, when they were full, we had to transport the maize to the town, and later transport it back to the chicken farm. This effort was quite expensive and a bother with my tractors together with the many trucks on the road. However, my first silo in 2014 lauded a welcome change. Now we can continue harvesting and unloading grain until ten o’ clock at night,” he says.

Last year he erected a second silo, which is now also filled to capacity with maize to sell when the price is right.

 

Each of his silos can hold 1 000 tonnes of grain. Niels plans to make his silos higher in the near future to increase the capacity of each with 500 tonnes. Fortunately, it is very easy to extend a GSI silo, as the company insists on strong foundations able to support the biggest silos right from the start, so that silos can later be extended according the increased storage needs.

During the process, the roof is simply raised and new wall sheets are slipped in underneath. After every second ring an extra set of supports is added. As the silos have openings on top, Niels prefers to protect his maize with a special insecticide rather than fumigating it. He simply installed a tank next to the pit’s auger to automatically spray the maize as it is fed to the bucket elevator. For the next twelve months the grain is free from weevils and other bothersome insects. The silo’s opening has two doors of which one can open to the inside only so that it can never be opened accidentally when the silo is full of grain.

In this door there are three smaller doors on top of each other. They can be opened separately to inspect grain as the silo fills up. In addition, there is a peephole through which grain samples can be extracted. The outside door opens to the outside and can be locked. Compared to the porous walls of concrete silos, the inside walls of GSI’s steel silos are smooth so that weevils cannot lay their eggs on them.

Contrary to concrete silos, steel silos are baked warm by the sun, which, combined with the even distribution of air from the blowers, helps to get rid of the moisture in the grain. Steel silos need far less maintenance than concrete silos. Galvanised steel need not be painted, it does not crumble or break out, and sand and wind cannot erode it.

Jozua du Plessis from Jozua du Plessis Boerdery near Delmas in the Eastern Transvaal had to erect driers in 1999 so that he could harvest his wheat in time for the maize or beans to be planted directly afterwards. “From the start, I only planted Bt free maize and one of the conditions set by the buyers was that it should never come into contact with any Bt grain. This forced me to transport it directly from the fields, but there was a congestion of trucks at the delivery point,” he says. “Therefore, I erected two silos to use as a transfer facility.”

Each of Jozua’s two silos holds 1 200 tonnes of grain, and in December, he can store his bt free wheat until March for a better price and a better quality. In time, the farming operation expanded and the transfer facility could not keep up. Three more silos were erected. Today, Jozua can store 6 000 tonnes for marketing at a later date. Jozua has no moisture or ground water problems, therefore he could opt for conical floors. This means that he can store an extra 100 tonnes in each silo.

“As we harvest the wheat during the rainy season in December, it happens that it sometimes arrives here in a moist condition. The aeration system of the silos works so well that it often is unnecessary to put the wheat through the driers first.” André Meyer is Jozua’s farm manager and he is very pleased with the silos because they make his life much easier. “Maintenance on the silos is simple and easy. After every season, we simply grease the critical points, tighten the chains, check the fins on the augers and tighten the bolts of the silos,” he says. “We employ only one person to man all five silos, the three delivery points and the drying plant. The control box is clear and simple to understand,”André says.

“I prefer GSI silos, because I have to change grain three times in a year, which can be a severe strain on the construction, but I am very satisfied with what I have acquired,” Jozua says. “In the year when I erected the last three silos, the maize price incidentally rose so strongly that I could pay for all three silos with the maize I could retain.”

GSI progressiveness is within your reach. Call 011-794-4455 or send an e-mail to sales@gsiafrica.co.za for more information.