The drying silo at Riuttamäki farm
The Riuttamäki farm in Huittinen was the first in Finland to introduce the Antti drying silo. Juho Riuttamäki manages an operation consisting of four farms.
Read more“I had heard good things about Antti from others, and they turned out to be true.”
At Pirkola, we are pleased with the practical functionality and excellent drying performance of Antti’s package dryer. We no longer need to be so precise about the timing of threshing. Antti’s dryer does the job, even if the grain is a little damp.
Pirkolan Tila Oy is a farm owned by brothers Tomi and Juha Pirkola and their spouses Anniina and Lea in Yppäri, Pyhäjoki. The farm specialises in pig production and has 3,590 places for fattening pigs. The piglets are mainly reared on grain grown on the farm. Barley, wheat and oats are grown on 430 hectares of sandy loam fields.
The facility has been developed purposefully in recent years. One of the largest investments has been in drying capacity. The decision was made to purchase a new dryer because Antti Stand Alone, which had been in service since the beginning of the millennium, had become too small and old. The experience with the old dryer had been so positive that it was decided to purchase the new dryer from Antti-Teollisuus.
“I had heard from other farmers that Antti’s current dryers are functional and efficient. In that sense, the decision was easy. We opted for a package dryer, meaning we wanted to place the dryer under a roof to protect it from the weather. We added small silos around it, which are convenient for storing the farm’s own seeds,” says Tomi Pirkola.
Cooperation between dryer and drying silo brings momentum
The new dryer is heated by Antti’s biofuel stove, which is fed with wood chips from his own forest. Compared to the old oil stove, wood chip heating has proven to be significantly more economical. The drying process is made even faster and more efficient by the adjacent drying silo, where the dried grain is transferred to cool down. In the first autumn, over 2.5 million kilograms of grain were dried, some of which came from a neighbouring farm.
“I am extremely satisfied with the reliability and efficiency of Antti’s drying technology. Antti’s representative created a silo map and programming. Then we turned on the dryer and started drying. The drying capacity increased significantly with the power. Now we don’t have to be so precise about the timing of threshing. Antti’s dryer does the job, even if the crop is a little wetter.”
Antti’s automation enables longer nights of sleep
The experiences with the Ultima control system have also been positive at Pirkola. The grain can be left to dry overnight without any worries, as the automatic system takes care of changing the batches.
“Before next autumn, we plan to purchase an additional function for Ultima, silo accounting. This will allow the system to show us what varieties we have and how much of each is in each silo. Modern technology makes farmers’ lives easier in many ways.”
Technical specifications for the Pirkola’s dryer:
- Dryer: Antti 85MF3, volume 72.84 m3, Optivol automatic underfill control in the top three cells
- Elevator: Antti E120 24.7 m
- Oven: Antti Bio 1600 kW vacuum bio-oven with Ala-Talkkari firebox, spring-loaded bottom and large wood storage compartment
- Silos: Package silo 3 x 3 m with 12 layers, volume: 1024 m3
- 4 ventilated silos on top of the tipping basin
- 2 x Iso-Antti grain silos, diameter 10.6 m, 9 layers, volume: 960 m3/silo
- New silo space totalling 2,944 m3
- Sweep screw discharge, silos are filled with a 48 m long Skandia overhead conveyor
- Control: Ultima control centre with automatic humidity measurement and remote control
- All actuators are motorised and remotely controlled.
- Tipping basin: 6 x 6 m drive-on tipping basin, capacity approx. 100 m3
- Skandia KTIG 100 t/h tipping conveyor