OT - Harvestore Silos

See some of these blue silos around - sounds like folks like them or hate them.

What makes a Harvestore silo better than an old brick/block silo?

I'm assuming back in the day, there were no wooden silos?

There must be a market for these Harvestore type silos - company is still in business - see link below.

Just curious.

Thanks,
Bill
Harvestore

There are a few around here. Neighbor has one that has sat empty for 25+ years. Tried to sell it at his retirement farm sale but couldn't even get a bid on it. Now it is just a landmark; turn west at the corner north of the big blue silo.

The big selling point to Harvestores is that they're sealed, meaning less spoilage of the feed. They fill from the top and feed out the bottom, so you're always feeding the oldest feed first.

Stave silos unload from the top so you're always feeding the newest feed first, and air is allowed in meaning the top is always spoiling.

The disadvantage to Harvestores is that they're way more expensive to build and maintain. From what I remember the unloaders didn't work all that well, needed a lot of maintenance, and were prone to breaking if you didn't maintain them. If they broke, that could mean crawling in underneath hundreds of tons of silage. I think the unloader technology has improved over time, though.

Harvestors are better than the old concrete silos, because they are completely sealed from air. This lets the forage/silale ferment nicely but not mold. It'll last all year with no waste. They have unloaders also so you don't have to pitch it out by hand. I'm not sure if some of the newer silos had unloaders or not. I've only seen the old ones that you pitched off the top by hand.

They're very nice and do a job. The big downside is they are so expensive. Not just to build, but to maintain. You're always changing the arms are you empty and fill, if you break something you're doing a digout. maintaining the floors. Keeping the airbags good with no leaks. The unloaders are very expensive. Maybe 20k for a brand new one?

There were advantages and disadvantages of each kind.

First, yes, there were wooden stave silos, as well as stone silos. Back in the day, those were quite common. In my neighborhood, there were quite a few stone, square silos- these were some of the earliest in WI> Poured concrete and concrete stave came next. Harvestore came on the scene after WWII, and offered the sealed approach- which worked, provided nothing got a leak. Leaky harvestores are common though, usually resulting in a lot of spoiled feed.

Concrete silos were never really replaced by harvestores- in fact there are still a few built today. Unloaders for concrete silos came on the scene in the 1950s- and while they unloaded from the top, which required climbing, you could fix the unloader a lot easier. Concrete silos also allowed farmers to put feed in wetter than a Harvestore, which can mean better quality especially if it means beating a rainstorm on some hay. Wetter corn silage is also more digestible. If feed was put in a Harvestore too wet, it could freeze to the sides, and with a harvestore the feed has to keep sliding down to the unloader. If the feed froze on one side, it usually meant the silo got lopsided, and often collapsed.

Today more feed is put in bags or bunker silos. The main driving force behind that is faster filling, and less capital cost. Often times though, feed quality is less than with upright silos.

Hope this helps.

A college friend worked for a bank; he hated Harvestore company. Apparently they used high pressure sales tactics and got the buyers to sign outrageous contracts. After the farmers realizes what they had signed, they came to the bank to try to get things changed, especially the interest. There wasn't anything that the bank could do for them, so they were just stuck with what my friend called "blue thermos bottles".

Or "Blue Tombstones" here.

Dairy and cattle business has grown in size like any other, and so bunker silos, silage piles, and plastic tubes have replaced the old silo style.

Harveststore had some good concepts as others listed, but making it work didn't always pan out so well. If the unloaded breaks its mierable to get to to work on. Silage can bridge as it falls down to the feeder, creating air pockets, or worse. The idea of a tall column of silage in a silo is the weight of silage packs itself down, squeezing air (oxygen) out of it - with the loader on the bottom, as you feed out it loosens the silage and allows air to get in again... The bags on top to allow for expansion and contraction were leaky, the unload hole would let air in, and so forth.

Silage is all about as little oxygen as possible in the pile of silage. The good little critters that make 'pickle juice' to keep the silage fresh die in oxygen, while the bad little critters that make mold love oxygen. You want all the oxygen out of your pile of silage.

The smaller ones are used by Amish and others for several different feed storage needs, and are somewhat in demand yet.

Paul

here's an interesting video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqLQXkh5PA


around here alot have been converted to grain storage. we have alot of smaller/mid sized dairies so quite a few still in use.

1 friend has haylage in one, grain corn in another and uses the concrete silo for Corn silage.
Untitled URL Link

The company came out with the XL unloader, suppose to be as fast as feeding from a bunker, just costly, the best feed you could feed comes from a sealed silo, just is costly! Not all sealed silos are Harvestores, I have a sealed stave and there was a few poured concrete sealed silos in this area. I have to wonder why so many questions about a Harvestore silo, are you thinking of putting one up? If i had the money to do it I would and try one of the XL unloaders, I don't like bags and bunkers don't excite me either, then the top unloading silos are dirty to have to climb up and open doors, I like the sealed I have but not fond of the unloader. I think the harvestore that I can pull out to work on is more attractive.

Harvestore was sued by several farmers and some farm states because they claimed that the feed silage that came from their silos was much higher in feed value than from other types when the truth is that what you put in is what you get out. These lawsuits cost the company a great deal of money and the company went out of business and sold their interest to others. There is still a company that will buy your old harvestore and remove and recondition it for resale. I seem to remember a company named A.O. Smith was the founder of harvestore silos.

(quoted from post at 13:12:52 10/14/16) Harvestore was sued by several farmers and some farm states because they claimed that the feed silage that came from their silos was much higher in feed value than from other types when the truth is that what you put in is what you get out. These lawsuits cost the company a great deal of money and the company went out of business and sold their interest to others. There is still a company that will buy your old harvestore and remove and recondition it for resale. I seem to remember a company named A.O. Smith was the founder of harvestore silos.

Click to expand...

AO Smith has been making water heaters for over 100 years (and they still are). They are an innovative engineering company involved in more than water heaters. They even made auto frames in the early part of the last century.

In 1949 they used the same glass fused onto steel technology to come up with Harvestore and they eventually installed 70,000 units on farms. I do not know who AO Smith sold the Harvestore to or if they just stopped production.

You mentioning that AO Smith was involved in more than water heaters caused me to remember seeing AO Smith name stamped or cast into the front landing gear parts of the World War II Boeing B-29 bomber "FiFi", when I saw the airplane more than 20 years ago.

(quoted from post at 11:36:46 10/14/16)

(quoted from post at 13:12:52 10/14/16) Harvestore was sued by several farmers and some farm states because they claimed that the feed silage that came from their silos was much higher in feed value than from other types when the truth is that what you put in is what you get out. These lawsuits cost the company a great deal of money and the company went out of business and sold their interest to others. There is still a company that will buy your old harvestore and remove and recondition it for resale. I seem to remember a company named A.O. Smith was the founder of harvestore silos.

Click to expand...

AO Smith has been making water heaters for over 100 years (and they still are). They are an innovative engineering company involved in more than water heaters. They even made auto frames in the early part of the last century.

In 1949 they used the same glass fused onto steel technology to come up with Harvestore and they eventually installed 70,000 units on farms. I do not know who AO Smith sold the Harvestore to or if they just stopped production.

Click to expand...

A.O Smith made auto frames up into the 90's. They sold off the business. I remember seeing train cars full of AO Smith frames going into plants near home.

My father in law milked 80-120 cows. He had two 80 foot harvestores and one 40 foot for high moisture corn. Excellent feed. When he retired many years later he sold them and they took them down and moved them. He told me that he broke even on them. I have seen others converted to grain storage.