In October 2020, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers reported “remote-operated grain drying” as one of the eight investments in technology farmers planned to make in the next five years. If you’re interested in the other seven investments, read our report of that survey here.
Now that harvest season is upon us once again, if you’re a farmer that didn’t make that investment last year, you might be thinking about how a remote-operated grain drying technology could help you finish harvest smoother and easier next year.
GSI’s Conditioning Applications Specialist Gary Woodruff reports “ease of use being a primary concern” on farms today. This is because there are fewer farmers doing the work and farms are larger, requiring more work to be done. During crunch time, otherwise known as harvest, a tool that can reduce the time required to complete necessary tasks is a game changer.
Enter GSI’s Vision Controls with options like AutoStart and the ability to run the dryer from your smart phone or tablet. Vision Control is a system available on many of GSI’s products. According to Woodruff, “It’s a monitor system. Full color, full graphical touch screen system that allows you to control and monitor the dryer better than we’ve been able to do in the past.” Vision Control not only allows you to control the dryer now, but also to review the records of how you’ve dried grain in past years.
The AutoStart option is also game-changing.
“Harvest only happens once a year. It’s not that easy to remember what you did a full year ago when you only do it for a short period of time. In our dryers, we have AutoStart. AutoStart allows you to set the type of grain you’re going to use, set the moisture, set the end moisture, and hit start. What used to take 2-4 hours to get that dryer up and running, now you can start that process in 10 minutes. AutoStart means you don’t have to remember that much, it gets you up and gets you going,” said Woodruff on a GSI promotional video.
Anything that can reduce the time required on small tasks – like starting the grain dryer – can open up resources for harvesting or hauling grain can be a massive efficiency gain on farms.
Finally, with GSI’s WatchDog system, you can view the Vision Control on your phone or tablet. That graphical touch screen that allowed you to start the dryer with ease and review your records from the past is now also available to you wherever you are instead of only at the bin site.
Are you a farmer with grain storage and drying opportunities scattered across two or three farms, maybe even two or three counties? Mobile dryer access can literally erase hours of time each day spent checking on your dryer and its progress. Better yet, sleep better knowing that you can check in quickly just before bed without having to drive to the storage site.
“This ease of use changes the amount of time that a farmer has to do his work and primarily reduces the time that he has to pay attention to the grain dryer,” says Woodruff. “We think that [demand for] this not only will grow as more people see it and understand that they don’t have to be standing next to the dryer to monitor and control it, but also become a part of the data that makes the farm better able to work in an efficient manner.”
