Barn Owl Wireless Helps Tackle Audit Pressures

Barn Owl Wireless System in a Grain StoreIt is an effortless system that can easily outperform manual crop monitoring and significantly reduce the time taken to cool grain and reduce the energy costs of store management. Stores can be monitored and controlled from the comfort of the farm office or home, whilst ensuring that stored crops remain in optimum condition. Barn Owl Wireless has been installed in many situations including flat floor stores, drying floors, silo and bin complexes throughout the UK and in a number of European countries.

Andrew Chennells from G H Chennells Farm Ltd has been using the Barn Owl Wireless system for three years in their 4600 ton store. “Previously we used handheld monitors and probes, and walked around with a clipboard noting the temperatures of the grain. However due to increased audit pressure we had to make sure that the job was being done accurately and reliably and Barn Owl Wireless has met these aims. Years ago we would look at the weather forecast and try to turn the fans on at the right time, most of the time we either forgot to turn the fans on or forgot to turn them off, which is very uneconomical”.

Barn Owl Wireless components link together seamlessly to relay information about the grain store through the mobile phone network to a Microsoft Cloud server. For those who aren’t tech savvy, this means you can monitor crop temperatures, ambient conditions and manage ventilation systems in stores automatically and remotely from your computer, smartphone or tablet, anywhere in the world. The crop is monitored through a series of wireless sensors placed in the crop around the store or in bins and silos. The sensors transmit crop temperature, ambient temperature and humidity readings to the Barn Owl Gateway and from here the data is collated and uploaded to a secure Microsoft Cloud server so it can then be viewed on an array of different devices. By utilising cloud storage, the user does not need to worry about software, files, backups or computer storage issues. The complete store history is available graphically on the device screen or in downloadable tables.

Steven Horn from G Horn & Sons is also experiencing the benefits from Barn Owl Wireless, including electricity savings and speed of the system. “We have saved approximately 30-40% on our costs for crop cooling since Barn Owl Wireless was installed. The speed in which our crop temperatures have fallen, even with the very mild autumn we have had surprised us greatly. Being able to accurately monitor the store gave us confidence when dealing with outside merchants. We also do contract drying, so the system gave us the flexibility to focus on this as well as our own storage”.

Barn Owl Wireless automatic fan controllers give the store manager the opportunity to control the fans in the store according to the data. They are able to turn fans on or off, or re-set temperature thresholds at which they turn themselves on or off automatically, which is key to successful drying and cooling with ambient air. Barn Owl Wireless gives the store manager the opportunity to see the automated cooling progress in real time. Savings on energy and labour costs, high definition crop store data for crop assurance and audit purposes and ultimately grain in the best condition possible are the key benefits to be had for any crop storage situation utilising the Barn Owl Wireless system.

For more information on the Barn Owl Wireless system, email (details below) or visit us at Lamma 2016 on stand 105.