 I'm Ken Hellevang and today we're going to talk about some of the things that you need to consider regarding storing soybeans this spring. Even though the market moisture content is 13%, if we're thinking of storing soybeans into the late spring and summer, it really needs to be down to 11% moisture. The reason for that is that we get mole growth anytime that we have air relative humidity over about 70%. And if you look at what we call equilibrium moisture content under summer conditions, that would be equivalent to about 13.5% moisture on wheat, about 12% moisture on corn, and 11% on soybeans. So that's how we come up with the 11% recommendation for the summer. The approximate allowable storage time for soybeans can be observed in this table. And if you look at 13% moisture soybeans at 70 degrees, we only have about 70 days of allowable storage time. So another reason why we think of 11% moisture for summer storage. Soybeans are made up of both the cereal grain portion and an oil. And if you look at the research that has been done on maintaining the oil quality, it's affected by both temperature and moisture. The study found that even 12% moisture beans stored at 70 degrees had a deterioration to a point that they were unacceptable in less than four months. So the goal will be to keep those beans as cool as we can as we go through the spring and summer. We recommend cooling grain to about 20 to 30 degrees for winter storage. We may need to aerate it in the spring, but the goal should be always to keep it close to that 35 to 40 degree temperature as a maximum. There are a lot of sensors and controllers available today. And I encourage you to use the temperature cables, but technology does not replace management. So it's still important that you be there managing what's going on and making the decisions to get the appropriate conditions. To manage that stored grain means that we have to have a degree of skill that we use as we monitor the temperature, moisture, looking for insects or mold. And I recommend that we do that every two weeks except through the coldest part of the winter. And we need to be then managing the temperature of the stored grain, the moisture content, and hopefully not, but insects are a possibility. As we go into the spring, there's a lot of solar radiation hitting particularly the south wall of a bin and the bin rough. This can start heating the grain even though outside temperatures are still quite cool. So we recommend that you periodically cool the grain through the spring and average or typical temperatures are available to do that cooling. There's a lot of solar heat gain that's going to occur at the top of the bin and that will warm the grain unless we vent that heat out of the bin. So I recommend either having eave openings and an opening near the peak so it can function as an attic or on some of the bigger bins, we're looking at using a bin vent fan to ventilate that headspace. It's critical that we cover the fans whenever they're not operating, otherwise the wind will blow the warm spring air in and warm all the grain in that bin. So make sure that we cover the fans to keep that stored grain cool. There's a lot of numbers on this slide, but what we're looking at is what is the maximum moisture content that we can use for natural air drying soybeans in the spring. And with an airflow rate of 1 CFM per bushel, as we look at this table, we find that the drying time exceeds allowable storage time until we're at about 16% moisture, preferably at 15 or lower. So the maximum recommended moisture content for air drying is going to be roughly that 15 to 16% moisture. And with an airflow rate of at least 1 CFM per bushel, start drying the grain once, average outdoor temperatures are about 40 degrees or warmer. So the soybeans that are at 16% moisture or wetter, those will need to be dried in a high temperature dryer. I recommend following the dryer recommendations, but typically we're going to look at maybe 120 to 130 degree temperatures recommended for commercial non-food grade soybeans. Fires are a hazard when we're drying soybeans in a high temperature dryer. It typically comes from pods and trash becoming lodged in the dryer and becoming combustible. So it's critical that we monitor that dryer continuously when we're drying, observe that the grain is flowing, and preferably at least on a daily basis, cleaning the dryer so that we don't have anything blocking that flow. Some of our soybeans ended up in grain bags for fall storage or over winter storage. Bags do not prevent mold growth or insect infestations. So they really need to be looked at as a winter grain storage option. For soybeans that are in bags, I really recommend that we pull them out and put them into a bin for spring and summer storage. Any time that we're going to leave those beans in the bag at warmer temperatures, we're potentially going to have storage problems. More information is available on my website. Do a search for NDSU grain drying and storage.