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Leesburg, Ohio | Yes, that is a ridiculous about to spend on drying.
Our operation cost with a tower dryer on natural gas has been running less than $.01/point, removing an average of about 7 points, or around $.07/bu.
Here's how I would analyse it:
A 20,000 bu drying bin at a cost of $4/bu is $80,000. Depreciate that over 20 years, that is a cost of $4,000/ year.
On 100 acres of corn yielding 200 bu/ac, that is $40/ac or .20 per bu.
Variable cost of gas and electric would run .15-.20 here.
So figure a total cost of operation and depreciation at $.40/bu?
If you are now paying even .10/point, that means you are spending .70/bu to take out 7 points (22% down to 15%).
That leaves $.30 bu savings per year. On a bin costing $80,000, it would take 266,000 bu to pay for it through savings on drying.
That means you would pay for the bin in about 13.3 years running 100 acres (or 20,000bu) through it per year.
If you grow 200 acres per year, it would pay for itself in 6.7 years. Running 300 acres/year though it would pay for it in 4.5 years.
I'm sure your costs for gas and electric will be different that ours, but you can run your own numbers to decide. | |
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Corn drying costs
