Drying - simple

1966 - coming from the UK 1966 was drummed into my then little Scottish ears as the year England won the world cup (I am still reminded of this by my lovely partner and English lady by birth). It was also the year that Anchorfield Station on the Condamine Plains purchased a Cascade Drying system from Alvan Blanch in Chelworth, Wiltshire - a dryer that as late as two years ago had some parts delivered and is still drying corn and sorghum on the property.

Fast forward - 2023, we have just returned to Australia from a very fast moving month back in England and Scotland, and having time to catch up with the Blanch team (and family) has reconfirmed our belief in this simple yet robust range of grain drying systems will continue to be delivered onto family & corporate farms across the country.

The investment in automation currently in place at Chelworth is significant, as Andrew explained, getting staff seems to be an on-going cycle, robots turn up each day, they can work all night and they dont need a tea break - so many of the more mundain mind numbing tasks are now completed by robotic systems.

Whilst we were there 2 x MDF25000 drying units destined for Hopetoun WA were being prepared for finishing, while another 2 were at the start of the line. The new finishing area allows the units to be inspected ahead of final closing and wrapping pre collection / shipping - all under cover.

Drying should be simple after all you are busy with several other things during harvest, a system should be operating with minimal supervision, allowing efficiencies to become more apparant at each end of the day with longer operating hours possible for the large shiny machines in the paddock.

We also dry some 'exotic' things - more in the next edition if we get that far.

Jim Duncan, Alvan Blanch Australia