You’ve done the hard work this season growing your crops. Now it’s time to think about preparing your grain store. We believe one of the most important things to think about is preparing your grain store before you begin your harvest. Spending time here will help to reduce the risk of your grain being damaged. An infestation could mean your grain is downgraded to a lower value specification. Or worse, it could get rejected. Plus, you have the transportation costs for having your grain returned.

If you’ve previously received a fumigation treatment from us, we’d highly recommend you call us to prepare your grain store before you begin to store your harvest through our specific cleaning programme.

We’ve got plenty of tips and solutions to help you protect your future stored grain from infestation.

Avoid insect infestations by preparing your grain store before you harvest

Typically, the source of insects infesting a newly stored commodity is from populations already infesting some previously stored material. That’s why preparing your grain store before you harvest is a must.

Did you know… Beetles produce 200 eggs at a time, two beetles can multiply to 90 million in a year, with the potential to destroy 50 tonnes of grain. These pests are not found in the crop fields, but can still contaminate the grain.

The primary pests damage grain, they raise the temperature and moisture levels. These then create suitable conditions for secondary pests and fungi.

Common infestations include:

  • Grain weevil,
  • Saw-toothed grain beetle,
  • Rust-red grain beetle,
  • Lesser grain borer,
  • Rust-red flour beetle,
  • Rice and maize weevil

There are also Secondary storage pests to consider. These develop on grain that has been already damaged by mouldy grain or previously infested by primary insects. These include the Australian spider beetle, booklice and fungus beetles will sometimes invade from nearby habitats such as haystacks.

Mites are much smaller than insect pests (typically less than 0.5mm long). They are a serious pest of stored cereals and oilseed rape causing direct damage. In large numbers, they can cause an allergic response in humans and livestock.

We’ve created this guide to help you identify the type of pests you may have lurking in your grain. It outlines all the different types of stored product pests that might be the cause of your infestation.

Reducing the risk of insect infestation

This year, we’ve seen a much milder winter and abnormally warm spring. Although the warmer weather has been great in lots of ways, the risk of infestation is much higher. Taking the extra steps now, preparing your grain store before harvest will save you money and time further down the line.

At The Bristol Pest Controller, we offer a pre-harvest treatment to help mitigate these potential infestations. We apply a high-pressure spray treatment to get to those hard-to-reach areas. Using K-Obiol® EC25 will protect your grain against most stored product pests for 2 months. A quick spray with a knapsack sprayer won’t work. These sprayers won’t reach the top of the shed roofs where the insects tend to be hiding from the previous year. We recommend doing this no later than 4-6 weeks before harvest for best results to kill all stages of the insects.

Call us now for an immediate quote for treating the store ready for harvest…

What is K-Obiol®?

K-Obiol® is a modern liquid pyrethroid formulation containing deltamethrin, synergised with piperonyl butoxide for the control of a wide variety of stored product insects known to infest grain and pulses. This pyrethroid formulation is an ideal alternative to organo-phosphate formulations.

When grain prices are high and with the possibility of growers choosing to store their grain for longer a planned approach to good grain storage is essential. This is the best solution to protect your grain.

Pre-Harvest Spraying and Pre-Harvest Fumigation

Any storage facility used over time will accumulate pests if left untreated. Giving last year’s pests a head start on this year’s crop. Treating an empty grain store, silo, bin or elevator can be one of the most cost-effective ways to keep pests under control. The stored commodity benefits from an entirely clean environment on day one, and an empty facility is easy to spray. 

The Bristol Pest Controller can visit a site on a regular basis, or at short notice, and spray empty stores and associated equipment to eradicate insect pests. This can be helpful as a general precautionary measure and is also especially useful if the previous year saw high levels of pest infestation. Store spray treatments are tailored to your own requirements and are effective against insects, mites and weevils found in typical grain stores. A pre-harvest spraying certificate is always issued.

How to prepare grain stores for harvest

Failing to prepare could result in problems from insect pests, like grain beetles, grain weevils or grain borers, here’s what you need to consider:

  1. Clean everything and everywhere, from top to bottom.
  2. Inspected any cracks to remove any of last year’s grain, which can harbour insects.  
  3. Three areas to watch for Roof spaces, under the floor dust & old grain, provides harbourages for mites & weevils.
  4. Once you’ve cleaned, you’ll need to ensure you move any debris far away from the store for removal.  
  5. If you have drying floors, you’ll need to check they’re completely free from dust and grain.
  6. Once you’ve done this we recommend fully spraying your store to get rid of anything remaining.
  7. And you want to ensure you’ve filled any potential entry holes to keep rodents out.  

We have a number of solutions to help you, get in touch with Giles today.

Good grain management

You should cool the grain straight after harvest. To keep the temperature down use blowers and extractors. These should circulate the old air away from the store to prevent rising stale air from causing condensation on the ceiling which drips down onto the grain, making it a great environment for the unwanted Hairy Fungus Beetle (Typhaea Stercorea).

To get the most out of your grain monitor the temperature and moisture content – making sure that the grain is kept below 10 degrees and moisture content below 15% will reduce your risk of infestation. Keeping the humidity down will prevent mites, they like to live in humid conditions, ensuring your grain is dried and cooled properly to keep them out.

If you’re using pitfall traps, sticky traps and temperature probes to maintain your grain we’d recommend carrying out weekly checks to ensure the reduced risk of infestation.

Grain infestation treatment

You’ve got an infestation, we can help you with that too. At The Bristol Pest Controller, we specialise in national fumigation services that provide a solution to your infestation, for numerous industries including farmers and millers within the agricultural industry. Find out more about our grain fumigation service.

Follow-Up Post-Harvest Fumigation

Ongoing monitoring is an essential part of crop storage, and we are on hand to handle any emerging problems – if it becomes evident that a crop is facing problems because of pests from the harvest, fumigation of a grain store, silo, bin or stack can always be arranged with us quickly and efficiently.