Masonville Today

Brian Kramer, Vice President, Operations

Hello everyone! In the spring edition of the Ag Biz, I provided some information regarding our new 20-acre Greenfield site being developed in Buchanan County. If you recall, the new site is known as our Masonville location. It is located on State Highway 187 approximately 5 miles south of Lamont. 

Masonville’ s purpose was to consolidate the operations of our existing Independence, Manchester, and Winthrop locations into one facility with investments in infrastructure to better serve the customer’s current and future needs. These sites had limitations or considerations in what could/should be done such as being landlocked, located within the city limits, or simply being located three miles off a paved roadway. Your cooperative chose to invest capital in one site vs. other alternatives considered. 

I am pleased to report that most portions of the project have been completed. We began receiving corn into the facility on October 1st and have dried corn as well. The new anhydrous ammonia facility was utilized this fall to service area customers. 

Through November we had operated the facility with what was required for personnel given the activity happening. Consolidation of staffing from Independence, Manchester, and Winthrop has taken place as of December 2nd. These facilities will continue to be operated as seasonal grain facilities; open during harvest for receipts but otherwise only staffed during grain shipment periods.

75,000 Gallon Anhydrous Ammonia Storage & Load Out Facility

Main Office Entry & Product Receiving-Load Out

Building Structure

The 24,320 square foot steel-framed building houses offices, a maintenance shop, warehouse space, liquid fertilizer and crop protection storage, and a load-out area. This building features customer parking in front of the offices with handicap accessibility into the office area. The truck scale is located on the south side of the office area at a lower elevation to give personnel a better view when probing grain. An outbound ticket printer has been installed for efficient transfer of scale tickets to customers when scaling. 

The north end of the building has a drive-thru contained load-out area for loading bulk fertilizers and crop protection products. Bulk crop protection storage is located under the roof in a contained area. This facility includes automation with a certified mass flow meter to allow fast and efficient loading of products without the need to weigh across the truck scale multiple times. Plans include the ability to provide 24/7 customer access to 32% UAN, ammonium thiosulfate (ATS), and liquid starter fertilizers through automation. Some work is still being done to finish this liquid system but, it will be ready for the coming spring season.

Conference Room

Counter sales and scale operations area

1.5 million gallon 32% UAN storage tank

Agronomy Storage

Already constructed is a 1.5 million gallon 32% UAN storage tank which will allow for faster and more efficient logistics to serve the customer and with the additional storage capacity, purchasing opportunities for the company. This winter, a 1-million-gallon ammonium thiosulfate (ATS) storage tank will be constructed. This storage will serve as a hub for the company to provide better availability and logistics for this product in season. Four 30,000-gallon liquid fertilizer storage tanks are in a contained area on the north end of the building and plumbed into the automated load out. These tanks will be used for storing liquid starter fertilizers. 

Over 27,000 gallons of bulk crop protection contained in seven individual storage tanks are located within the new building. These products can be either packaged in shuttles or loaded out directly with liquid fertilizer or water through an automated batch weigh system. 

The 75,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia storage tank that was located at the Winthrop facility was relocated to the Masonville site. Plumbing was designed with loading efficiency in mind for the benefit of our customers as well as addressing the most current safety features for our employees.

Crop Protection Storage & Load Out Facility

1.25 Million Bushel Grain Storage & Drying Facility

Truck Scale & Grain Probe

Grain Facilities

The facility’s receiving infrastructure consists of two receiving driveways, both equipped with 1,500-bushel dump pits and 15,000 bushels per hour (bph) receiving legs. The 3,500 bph Sukup tower dryer from Winthrop was relocated to Masonville. 

A pair of 5,000-bushel overhead load-out bins will be positioned above one of the two receiving driveways. There are two10,000-bushel hopper bins as well that will allow segregation of grains that may be needed. 

Storage bins consist of:

• 54’ diameter grain bin with a rated capacity of 172,000 bushels. This bin is the working “wet bin” during harvest and in addition to feeding the dryer can be reclaimed directly back to the load out bins as well.
  
  
• 78’ diameter grain bin with a rated capacity of 361,000 bushels. This bin was used for corn this fall, but in the future will serve as soybean storage.
  
  
• 105’ diameter grain bin with a rated capacity of 691,000 bushels. This bin is used for dry corn storage. This bin was relocated from our Winthrop location along with the fill and reclaim equipment.

In total, the first phase is about 1.25 million bushels of storage capacity. The infrastructure being built will comfortably allow for additional storage capacity in the future. There are some items yet to complete in the grain facility such as overhead loadout bins, but work continues through December to complete the project.