“Everything we have here is cutting-edge — the best of what’s on the market today,” says Kyle Lehman, manager of the grain complex at TruHorizons near Milford. Co-located with an agronomy center, the state-of-the-art operation just began taking grain this fall.

Lehman says there’s a lot more technology at work than what the customer sees. Here are five innovative features that set the elevator apart as a facility for the future.

1. Well-equipped silos and bins with a monitoring system.

ALL ABOUT CAPACITY AND CAPABILITY: The silos and bins at TruHorizons elevator are equipped with various monitoring systems to provide quality storage capacity.

The TruHorizons facility includes eight 133,000-bushel concrete silos and two 750,000-bushel Brock corrugated steel bins. All are equipped with the latest in monitoring devices, temperature cables and sonar devices.

These monitors measure precisely how much grain is in each bin, determine what the quality is and detect any problems that might be starting.

2. Unbelievable dumping and loadout speed.

While the two dump pits can take in grain in excess of 40,000 bushels per hour, outbound grain can be loaded even faster, at 60,000 bushels per hour.

“We can load out a 120-car unit train and head it toward its destination in seven hours,” says Lehman. “Ninety percent of what leaves here will be on unit trains. Getting product out sooner is part of what enables us to get higher prices.”

A state-of-the-art dust collector system removes a lot of the dust commonly found at elevators.

3. Super-long scale installed with the future in mind.

“This elevator was designed with lots of forethought and expansion in mind,” says Lehman. As yields trend upward and the customer base grows, plans are already in place to upgrade and expand as needed. Three new Brock bins can be added, as can another dumping pit. Space has been allotted for all these contingencies, and they can be added without disrupting current operations.

The weigh scales are 120 feet long. Should trucks with double trailers, which are currently legal in Michigan but not Indiana, become legal here, the elevator is already set up for it, without having to do costly and time-consuming retrofitting.

4. Innovative temporary storage capability.

The storage capacity of the TruHorizons facility is 4.33 million bushels. Two million of that is temporary storage. This circular storage area is 305 feet in diameter — longer than the length of a football field, or a total of 1.67 acres.

Ten-foot-high sidewalls, with perforations small enough that grains of wheat can’t fall through, provide additional aeration to the extensive aeration system already in place. The floor is asphalt, and 14 fans supply air for holding the tarp cover in place.

5. State-of-the-art drying system with fail-safe backup built in.

Two 5,000-bushel tower dryers keep grain drying during the busiest times. The system is designed so that if one dryer goes down, the other can continue drying.

There are a number of fail-safes in the system. Soybeans can’t be run into the same bin as corn. And as predicted with big data, if a belt is not operating properly, it will show up on a computer. If a bearing is too hot, it will shut down before it causes a serious problem.

“I can run the whole elevator from the computer right here in my office,” Lehman says. “Or if I’m at home in bed and a problem comes up, I can troubleshoot it from an iPad."

Boone writes from Wabash.