A more than $300,000 investment at the Mountain View Seed Cleaning Plant is expected to help improve area grain fields as well as producers' bottom lines this growing season.
The Carstairs-area cooperatively owned plant now uses a colour sorter to clean all seed coming through the plant.
Cameras in the machine help sort out undesirables that don't match specified seed characteristics the sorter is programmed to detect.
The technology is nearly 100 per cent effective in achieving its goal, said Tom Bennett, chair of the Mountain View Seed Cleaning Plant board.
“The grain coming out is far superior to what we had before,” said Bennett. “At times, we've had 30 per cent barley in the wheat. It comes out spotless in this - something like 99.9 per cent.”
There are definite short- and long-term benefits to the producer, he added.
In years past, he said there's been some bad cases of ergot -- fungi that contaminates grain -- in wheat going through the plant.
“You get docked quite bad when shipping it. So if we can clean it up and bring the grade of grain up, you'll get more money for it,” he said.
When producers are using the cleaned seed to put back into the ground to grow the next year's crop, cleaner seed will produce a better crop, he said.
“Over time, if you're using your own seed, you'll often have volunteer coming up. This will reduce that because you'll be putting in more of what you want and less of what you don't,” he said.
The colour sorter has been in operation for about a month now. Barley cleaning was first up and as of last week, the plant has moved into wheat. Bennett was looking forward to his shipments being processed last week.
From a board perspective, Bennett said the sorter opens up a lot of doors for the cooperative.
It is hoped the new technology will continue to keep the plant viable and increase business.
Last year the plant cleaned about 350,000 bushels of grain. The draw of the colour sorter could increase that to around 410,000 bushels, he said.
To pay for the more than $340,000 technological investment -- which included plant renovations like the addition of an air compressor -- producers are being charged an extra 15 cents per bushel.
“We think it's well worth it,” he said.
