The Granary

The Granary

From eastern Colorado, through Kansas, and into Missouri where I am now, there are many, many farms growing lots of vegetables/grains and raising tons of cattle. In Dighton, Kansas I was fortunate to get a closer look at one of the granaries Almost every town I travelled through in Kansas had a granary that can be seen from miles away. The photo above shows a large granary much like the one I went inside in Dighton. Notice the truck in the lower right hand corner to get a sense of the size of these things.

What exactly is a granary? Granaries store various kinds of grain after they have been harvested and processed to get rid on the unwanted parts of the plant. Common grains stored are corn, milo, wheat, soybeans, and sunflowers. back to top

The photo on the left shows what milo looks like. I had never seen or heard of it before. It is a common grain used to feed chickens.

Do you know what those are in the photo above? Yes, sunflowers! It is amazing to see so many in one place.

I admittedly did not know what this dark green plant was until I saw a sign that had the name on it, even though I eat it almost daily in the form of tofu when I am at home.
It is the soybean. Can you identify the soybean pods in this photo?
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The granary in Dighton is huge. The 100 foot high bins on the right hand side of the phot above can house 1.6 million bushels of grain. At approximately 60 pounds per bushel that comes to a storage capacity of 96 million pounds of grain! That is not including the dome that you see in the picture. This dome- the same type you have seen athletic events- can house one million bushels of grain. It was less expensive to put up the dome than it would have been to build another granary. back to top

Bryce Vance, who showed me around, climbed the wheat pile to pose for this shot above. At right is a close-up of the wheat.

I was very fortunate to get to stand in the dome, in awe of the massive amount of wheat that stood piled before me and beneath my feet. Amazing!

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Where does all this grain go? A large percentage of it goes to feed cattle and chickens. Most of these animals are raised to be killed to provide the meat and chicken that you find at the supermarket or in a restaurant. Some of the animals are kept alive to provide milk and eggs.

Mike@Kahncious.Net

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