The speed -- or lack of -- of grain drying is certainly one of the critical elements making for harvest concerns this year.

Last week, a grain drying Webinar was held, and I thought I'd pass on some of the information discussed. A recording of the program as well as the power point slides are available online at www.grainnet.com/webinars.

The speaker, Dirk Maier from Kansas State, emphasized that you don't have to dry corn to 15 percent moisture this fall to safely store it.

To improve grain drying efficiency, the use of two-stage (or combination) drying systems should be utilized. With this method, you dry corn down to 19-20 percent then transfer to another bin, where you allow it to steep (sit) for 6-12 hours, then air it. This allows the grain mass to become more uniform in moisture. The speaker mentioned that grain exiting a dryer will vary widely in moisture, even though the average moisture is low.

After the 6-12 hours, turn on the air (you need near 1cfm/bushel airflow) to remove another couple of points out of the grain, and you can safely store 16-17 percent corn for 280 days at 40 degrees or 130 days at 50 degrees. But since you'll be airing the grain to take it down to 35-40 degrees for winter, you'll not have any loss. Then take advantage of spring warmth to get the grain down to 14-15 percent for storage into summer.

Remember to take the center out of the bin to remove the fines and broken kernels to improve air flow. Don't forget to level the bin after this to improve air flows.

Rules of thumb:

* This fall you'll need lots of air, energy and time.

* The higher the air drying temperature the faster the drying time. However, don't take more than 5 points of moisture out of corn per hour, or you'll lose quality.

* The wetter the corn, the higher temperature you can use without damaging the grain. You can use heat as high at 200 plus degrees on corn 18 percent or higher without damage, as the maximum kernel temperature would only get to 140 degrees or so. However, if you continued drying down past 18 percent with this high of heat, you'd damage the grain. So his recommendation was to dry down to 18 percent then transfer to a bin to steep and then air.

* To check airflow, purchase a static pressure gauge and measure static pressure at the plenum and then contact the fan manufacturer with that info, and they can tell you how much airflow you have.

* For frost-damaged corn, if test weight is above 50 pounds (if it was dent before frost), harvest at 30-35 percent, dry down and then sell before spring as you probably don't want to try and store this corn long term.

* According to North Dakota, we might see up to 1 percent moisture loss per week with field drying in November, but December may only be 2 percent for the whole month.

Natural air drying is or will shortly be almost nonexistent due to cooler temperatures. The main criteria is the amount of air you can provide. Airflows as high as 1cfm/bushel are ideal. Many bins can't provide that sort of airflow. Using the following chart, at 40 degrees air temperature and 50 percent humidity, it will take 14.4 days to dry 18 percent corn to 15 percent. The chart is available online at cropwatch.unl.edu/web/cropwatch/archive?articleID=1990301.

* Cooler temperatures are probably going to favor us by allowing higher moisture corn to be stored for longer periods of time. For instance, 24 percent moisture corn can be safely stored for 40 days at a temperature of 40 degrees, but only 15 days at a temperature of 50 degrees. We have available the chart showing approximate storage days at various temperatures and grain moistures.

* Remember to check the condition of the grain regularly. There are numerous reports of grain going out of condition already this year.