With Harvest now underway in Saskatchewan farmers will need to pay attention to storage management after the grain is in the bin.
 
Joy Agnew, the Project Manager with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute, explained when you need to run your aeration fans.
 
"So it all depends on grain conditions and air conditions, if the grain is tuff and warm you definitely need to be having air flow through it to try and get the temperature down and moisture content down, but when your close to dry, like towards the 15 to 20 degrees Celsius, then it makes sense to strategically manage your fans so that you're not rewetting or rewarming the grain when you don't want to."
 
Agnew also spoke about if it's better to run an aeration fan during the day or night.
 
The whole dry versus night debate is that strategic fan operation is trying to increase efficiency, but it all depends on the air and grain temperature and the difference between the two, and the humidity as well," Agnew said. "There is no do this and do that, it all depends on the conditions."
 
Agnew adds that understanding the air's capacity to dry and what it's going to do to the grain is critical for fan manage.