[TREVOR HANDS] Hello I'm Trevor Hands. I'm the Director of Communications for the
Garden City Co-op. Today I am joined by Gabe Bautista and Victor
Duarte here at our Garden A elevator location. As you saw in an earlier video we kind of
took a look at the whole process of how grain elevators work. Today we're going to get an inside view of
one of those elevators. These are some of the older elevators we have
- we have a couple of new ones that are fully automated that you don't actually get inside
except for the actual silo themselves. So today we're going to take a look at all
the pieces that make some of these older slip form style elevators work. [INTRO MUSIC] [TREVOR HANDS] So Gabe, can you tell me what
happens when a farmer brings a truckload of grain here to the elevator? [GABE BAUTISTA] Yep well the truck will pull
onto our scale. We'll get them weighed, get all their information
and put it onto the computer. From there we'll probe the truck. If it's wheat or soybeans we'll run it through
the kicker, or if it's corn and milo we'll just run it through our moisture tester, and
depending on the moisture we'll either run it through the dryer, or if it's not that
wet, we'll just finish drying it down with our aeration and from there we'll send the
truck on over to the elevator. We are now at the inside receiving pit. This is where the truck will pull in and unload
the grain. When we pull this lever here it will allow
the grain to flow into our boot pit. And now here we are in the boot section. As you can see, this right here is the gate
that we opened earlier to allow the grain to flow from the inside pit to the boot section
of the leg which will allow the buckets to carry it a hundred twenty feet up to the distributor
floor. We are now here at the distributor floor. From here we are able to move the grain to
the desired bin or to a belt on either the east or west side of the gallery floor or
to the scale for a load out. Each number corresponds to a bin or a spout
to move the grain. We have to manually move the distributor to
the desired spout on the floor to move the grain. Next we move down to the gallery floor. Well we just left the distributor floor where
we set up the distributor from the scale to go into the west belt which is right here. Now we're going to allow the grain to come
from the distributor down that spout onto our West belt. So now the grain is falling onto the top
West belt which will carry it on down to our tripper which will dump the grain to the designated
bin. [TREVOR HANDS] What is this contraption here? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well this right here is our
tripper and it is driven by the belt. This right here's our brake lever and this
right here's our drive lever. Pulling the drive lever down will let the
tripper move up forward and pushing the lever up will allow the tripper to go backwards. [TREVOR HANDS] So these like individual sprockets
we see here, I mean, does this operate kind of like a throttle, where the further over,
the faster you go? [GABE BAUTISTA] Exactly. [TREVOR HANDS] So what are we looking at over
here? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well that right there is our
North spout. We also actually have one on the other side,
which is our South spout. They're both controlled by that wheel up there
which allows the grain to either get dumped into the South side of the elevator or the
North side of the elevator. [TREVOR HANDS] Okay. [TREVOR HANDS} Okay Gabe, so essentially,
you know, the truck comes in. We saw, you know, from the bottom of the hopper
the grain is released, goes into the receiving pit and then from there goes into the boot
pit and then from there that's sent up to the distributor floor to which then that's
sent down to the gallery belt and then the belt takes it to to the tripper where it's
then sent off to the designated bin. So after the grain comes in, your job kinda
shifts - you and Victor's job shift to just maintaining quality control on the grain
in the bins here, right? [GABE BAUTISTA]: Yeah and we do that by monitoring
our hot spots which is some temperature cables that we have in each one of our bins. If we notice that the temperature keeps on
going up after they brought their grain in, then we know we either got a moisture problem
or we got a bug problem, in which, if we have a bug problem we fumigate it. If we have a moisture problem, we turn the
bin and run air through it. [TREVOR HANDS]: What would be kind of your normal
desired temperature range where you usually keep grain? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well the temperature range
where I like to keep my grain is 40 to 50 degrees is where I like because that's where the bugs
are dormant. So you know, if you got your grain at 40 degrees
you shouldn't have a bug problem. [TREVOR HANDS] So that does require kinda
a lot of cooling then, especially when you're dealing with your summer days. [GABE BAUTISTA] Our aeration helps out a lot. We try to do - in the night, we turn on our
aeration and then the - when we get to work that, in the morning we turn it off so that
way it's not sucking in moisture from you know, from the elements outside. [TREVOR HANDS] So the grain's been stored. What happens when the grain gets sold? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well the grain handling process
basically gets reversed. [TREVOR HANDS] Yeah, 'cause, I mean you're
basically taking the grain that's been stored in these bins and now we're putting it back
into trucks, right? [GABE BAUTISTA] Yeah and that process begins
down in our tunnel belt.You wanna go see? [TREVOR HANDS] Sure, let's go! [GABE ENTERS THE MAN-LIFT AND DESCENDS DOWN
INTO THE TUNNEL BENEATH THE GRAIN ELEVATOR] [GABE BAUTISTA] So we are currently standing
here under Bin Number Five and right next to us we got the cables which control the
airflow to this bin. What that does, it pulls the air, the cool
air from the top, and sucks all the moisture inside of the bin - out, and throws it outside. So basically it's replacing the moisture with
cool air. [TREVOR HANDS] Gotcha, so I mean, you see
a lot of them - especially the newer ones [elevators] - that have the fan on the outside
but this one is on the inside? [GABE BAUTISTA] Yeah, on half of the elevator
it's on the inside but the other half is just like the other elevators and they also have
half on the outside. [TREVOR HANDS] Gotcha. So what can you tell me about this machine,
right here? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well that there is our air
compressor. And we use that to minimize the dust, seeing
as how grain dust can be really explosive. The air line goes throughout the whole elevator;
top distributor, gallery floor and in every floor we have a set of hoses which we also
have the correct nozzle tip for OSHA standard, and that's what we use to blow down the floors. [TREVOR HANDS] To keep everything clean? [GABE BAUSTISTA] Yeah. [TREVOR HANDS] Gotcha.Okay, so, I mean, I've noticed these shoots. This must be where grain flows down when we're
ready to sell it, right? [GABE BAUTISTA] Yeah, exactly. That's where the grain comes and drops down to the belt and from the belt, shoots down to the leg distributor. You wanna follow me down there? [TREVOR HANDS] Sure. [GABE BAUTISTA] This is our leg distributor
and this wheel right here determines whether the grain goes to the South leg or the North
leg. [TREVOR HANDS] So you've got the grain that
comes down out from the selected bin. It goes on to the tunnel belt. From the tunnel belt, it comes to this leg
distributor, and then it goes on to either leg. Where does the grain go from there, if it's
going to be loaded out to a truck? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well from there, the leg takes
it up to the distributor floor. The distributor floor will drop it down to
our West belt floor and from the West belt floor, it'll take it to the tripper and from
the tripper it should take it to our load out bin. From the bin to the truck and out it goes,
man. [TREVOR HANDS] So basically there's a lot
of repeat in the process that we've already been through, its just now we're going to
be moving that grain instead of to a, uh, storage bin, it's going to a loadout bin. [GABE BAUTISTA] Yeah. Above us here are our load-out spouts. We can also loadout from inside our receiving
area, but prefer to load out here because it's faster. As soon as the truck is filled up, it will
proceed to the scale where it will be weighed out. [TREVOR HANDS] Okay so we've got our truck
loaded out there at the elevator and they come back to the scale house, so what happens
to finish out this whole process? [GABE BAUTISTA] Well they pull onto our scale,
we get them weighed, we probe 'em, enter their test weight and moisture onto the computer
with the rest of their information and from there we finish filling out their paperwork,
print it, give them a copy - give them their copy and send them on their way. [TREVOR HANDS] All right well thanks Gabe! Appreciate the tour! [GABE BAUTISTA] Not a problem! Anytime! [OUTRO MUSIC]
