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Soybean  and Corn seed conditioning

 

How to gather, condition and save seed for planting next year

For self sufficient "green living" "off the land" types.

• You are not supposed to use seeds from patented varieties of plants.
• Avoid using seed from fields that had disease problems.
• Depending of the type of crop you may even want to hand pick the raw seed to prevent damage.
• Separate the seeds (see Air screen below) and either passively air dry them or use a ventilated dryer but never a high temperature unit.
• Research each type of seed to determine to what moisture content is most desirable for the particular seed.
• Conduct a germination test to determine whether they are worth the effort.
• We are assuming that you do not have access to expensive machinery, but regardless what methods that you use to harvest separate and transport the seed beans it must be done carefully to avoid damaging the seed which can permit the seed to desiccate (dry out past a usable condition). or giving rot an entrance point.
• If you use a winnowing tower to process your grains just know that these or a fall from any distance can damage seeds. If you still want to use a tower arrangement then provide a corrugated flow ladder to reduce the impact damage
• Process your corn seed and soybeans in a temperature above 60 degrees.
• Generally the seed moisture content needs to be between  11 to 14%  during the handling and storage , except in warm climates where storage needs to be nearer 10% and or refrigerated to near 55 degrees.  Caution must be used when removing from refrigeration into warm humid air as condensation will form on the seeds and unless they are planted or spread out to air dry they will rot or even attempt to germinate. Remember when drying, direct sun is not suggested.

A homemade forced air screen  Winnowing Tower
Winnowing/grading machine - for separating chaff and grading grains and beans to size.

You can make your self a forced air separator to handle the chaffing and sorting of grains or beans by size or density  by constructing a  tower (a salvaged 16" X 16 foot water pipe or similar) with a source of forced air at the bottom (a squirrel cage fan from a dumped AC air handler - Can be found along many rural roads). You will need to cut slots in the wall of the tower, 1 1/2' high and about a third of the way around, every 16" down one side of the tower with the last on being notched in the bottom equal with the tower floor. On the opposite side of the tower  10" from the top  cut a similar slot so the chaff will exit  where it will not co-mingle once again.  Fashion some cover plates to enable you to tune it for your particular crop. Close off the slots that you don't need.  Construct chutes and a way to connect them using the same fasteners that you will use for the cover plates. These will facilitate the removal of the various grades of grains Next you will need to cut out an induction hole at the bottom of the tower  so you can fasten the fan to it. This needs to be opposite of the last slot. The top of the tower need to have a funnel shaped hopper (if you don't made the funnel rigid you can slide the ends to increased the opening size until you have determine the correct size). It is bet if you connect a small motor with an off center eccentric cam to the funnel to induce a vibration that will keep the grain flowing smoothly.  Turn on the fan and fill the hopper to begin testing to determine which slots need to be left open. Once you have determined what is the correct slots to leave open, then mark the appropriate slots with the type of grain so that next year you won't have to try and figure it out again or find some scrap of paper with your notes on it.  Depending on the crop and the fan you may find that you will need to choke either the size of the openings of the slots  or the intake side of the fan. Note: the fan when choked will speed up and increased the velocity of the air when partially choked but decrease in the volume of air that is moved.

The principle of this simple machine  is that the strongest blast of air will be nearest the air source, in this case at the bottom, and will weaken at each sequential slot where some of the air will escape taking along with it the particle or grain that is able to be diverted from it's downward fall as determined by it's mass and be discharge out of the appropriate slot.

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