“The FX4 SP and FX4 18S are built for grain operations that require reliable, high-throughput conveyors that range from 8,000 to 10,500 (bushels per hour),” AGI’s senior vice-president for North American farm and global portables, Paul Brisebois, said in a press release.

The self-propelled mover kit available for the FX4 SP with all-terrain tires makes moving the conveyor around for those less-than-perfectly-located grain bins a little easier. The conveyor comes with a 37-horsepower Vanguard gas engine that moves grain through a 10-inch tube using a 15-inch belt.

Those features give this model an 8,000-bushel per hour capacity.

An under-hopper skid plate improves belt protection and allows for easier cleanup at the end of a job. It also offers a low-profile collapsible hopper and handler to allow for more clearance under trucks and hoppers.

The FX4 SP is available in 39-, 44- and 49-foot lengths. It’s available under the AGI Batco, AGI GrainMaxx, AGI Hutchinson and AGI Westfield brand names.

The FX4 18S electric top drive conveyor uses a larger 12.75-inch tube and an 18-inch belt, giving it a 10,500-bushel per hour capacity. It’s available in 39- and 44-foot lengths.

A new steel hopper option is available as well as what the company calls a “no-nonsense” discharge hood to better direct grain flow straight down. For durability and better performance, the belt runs on a new, larger drive roller.

“The FX4 18S is all about capacity and control,” AGI director of global product management Kent Woods said. “We’ve upgraded the belt, rollers and hopper to give farmers a conveyor that performs under pressure and simplifies setup.”

This model will also appear on dealers’ lots under the same four brand names as the FX4 SP.

“This series launch reflects AGI’s commitment to building smarter, more efficient grain handling solutions for farm operations of all sizes,” Brisebois said.

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Now, grain handling equipment manufacturer AGI is adding augers to that list.

The company showed its prototype E-UTX Smart Auger at this summer’s Ag in Motion 2025 farm show near Langham, Sask.

The E-UTX uses battery technology sourced from a partnership with California-based Monarch, which currently builds battery electric (BEV) tractors. Monarch has also licensed its technology to CNH for use in its BEV tractor development program.

However, AGI’s Kent Woods says the new E-UTX is about more than just providing an electric option for an auger. It’s just one part of the creation of a smart auger that incorporates several high-tech features along with the alternative drive system.

“We wanted to take it a step further, so it’s a smart auger. We’re trying to increase efficiency but also hit huge safety concerns and try to alleviate them as much as possible.

“When we got right down to it, how do we take unloading a truck from a two- or three-person job to one person, where someone doesn’t have to leave their truck in -30 C weather? You’d run it (the auger) right from your iPhone sitting in the cab.”

Along with remote operation, the auger can also be controlled directly from an operator station that incorporates a joystick and digital screen, which can be used to input safety and control parameters as well as display operating data and a camera image.

To add to the safety of everyone working nearby, the auger has a “human detection field.”

“If it’s running and someone gets within that field, it would shut down,” Woods says.

A Smart Auger can also store GPS information about the farmyard it’s working in to help improve operator safety when moving it and to remember specifications about bins.

“It goes as far as mapping out each farmyard,” Woods says.

“If I have a bin that has a bottom hopper height of 28 or 29 inches, I can actually set the auger so it will never go any higher than that when moving it. I can map power lines through the GPS.”

The onboard system can relay information about how much material has moved through the auger to help assist in loading or unloading trucks and collect management data.

The battery pack is capable of running the auger under load for about four hours. It can be plugged in for recharging to extend that range if there is a power source nearby. If it’s being used where there is no electricity, the auger battery pack can be used to power other tools or systems.

While the model on display at Ag in Motion was a pre-production prototype, AGI expects to begin production of the E-UTX for 2026.

The exact specifications of the eventual production model may be slightly different than those shown on the prototype, Woods says, depending in part on the feedback the company gets from farmers.

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At Ag in Motion in July, we spoke with two product reps on the show grounds about two things in particular that producers should watch for when it comes to grain storage: moisture and temperature.

“When Mother Nature doesn’t do her bit to dry the crop so they don’t need any additional attention, that’s when a grain dryer is an invaluable piece of equipment for farmers,” says Ron Kleuskens, technical sales rep with AGI.

Due to drier conditions, the past few growing seasons have seen less of a demand for on-farm grain drying added Kleuskens, but weather cycles often come with an element of surprise.

Kleuskens says deciding on a grain dryer shouldn’t be a last-minute decision as there is more to consider than the actual build, such as electrical work.

“The more forethought you put into it gives dealers and builders time to make sure everything is up when you need it,” he says.

“Just because they’ve got the equipment in it doesn’t mean the electrician can just snap to it. There’s other parts to it.”

READ MORE: Being proactive in storage, handling key to grain safety

Back in July at the show, Kleuskens said it was about a six- to eight-week lead time to set up a grain dryer once a sale is finalized.

Once your grain is inside the bin and dried to an optimal level, bin monitoring systems can offer an added layer of security and peace of mind.

Flaman was one exhibitor at Ag in Motion that offers bin monitoring equipment. Its product, Bin-Sense, is a remote grain monitoring device that keeps you in the loop about the condition of grain inside your bin by triggering an alert if the temperature or moisture of your grain rises above a set threshold.

“Once there is a rise in temperature, the system will send a notification to your phone or computer and it alerts you to a temperature spike,” says Kent Sackmann, grain monitoring manager wth Flaman.

Once an alert is received, a producer can take corrective action such as turning on aeration fans or moving grain as needed.

The Bin-Sense app (available for both Android and Apple) allows a user to monitor their grain from a smartphone or by logging into the website via a desktop computer.

Sackmann shared that producers with higher-value crops in their bins are more likely to use a remote bin monitoring system.

So, depending on where you may be in your crop rotation — and where you predict grain prices may be headed — may spur your decision to invest in a remote grain bin monitoring system.

The Canadian Grain Commission offers safe storage guidelines of all major crops to help producers avoid bin spoilage.

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Rather, the Swift Current, Sask. manufacturing team for grain handling equipment maker AGI has rolled out this one-of-a-kind Batco UCX³ 1549 belt conveyor model for online auction as a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society, to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Bidding is open online until Oct. 31. (Alternately, you can donate to the Conveyor for a Cause fundraising effort at the same web page.)

Tom Firth, general manager at AGI’s Swift Current shop, spearheaded the initiative as “our unique way of supporting this worthwhile cause. And that benefits everyone from farm to table,” he said in a release earlier this month.

The UCX³ U-Trough belt conveyor, in the “fully loaded” state of the pink model, goes for a suggested retail price of $87,156.

The UCX³ is billed as an “all grain commodity system” suitable for all seed types, including oilseeds, the company says. It uses a 15-inch wide belt capable of moving up to 12,500 bushels per hour of wheat or peas, or up to 10,000 bu./hour of canola under “ideal” conditions.

AGI says it plans to announce the winning bid for the conveyor sometime next month.

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The walls of steel bins AGI sells up here in Canada and in “select northern states” under the Westeel brand are made with four-inch-wide corrugation, while in other U.S. markets AGI has been selling bins with sidewalls corrugated at 2.66 inches.

Now, however, AGI will standardize all its galvanized steel bin lines across the U.S. and Canada at the four-inch corrugation, “to align with category growth and customer demand.”

Unfortunately, that move means AGI will close its bin manufacturing plant at Grand Island, Nebraska, about 200 km west of Omaha. The Grand Island plant has mainly made bins for AGI at the 2.66-inch corrugation.

That plant came to AGI in 2017 when it bought Global Industries, which made bins under the Stormor and MFS brands, along with other grain drying and grain handling brands such as Neco, Hutchinson and Mayrath.

“This standardized bin format strengthens AGI’s storage catalog in the United States and provides dealer customers with new products that increase their ability to compete in the widely adopted 4.00-inch corrugation market,” AGI said in a statement last month.

MFS/Stormor bins used to be promoted with the 2.66-inch corrugation as a selling feature; the manufacturer had said it “provides more steel per square inch when compared to wider corrugation of the same thickness, and that matters when you have tons of grain inside the bin.”

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The same holds true for on-farm grain storage, says Derek Johnson, regional sales director for AGI, one of the largest manufacturers of grain bins in Canada. He says planning for grain storage helps ensure the crop’s quality is properly preserved until it reaches buyers.

“When it comes to storage, next year starts now,” Johnson says. “We want to ensure that producers understand that, as a manufacturer, we’re manufacturing and building bins today that are going to be assembled on farms next summer.

“Producers should begin the planning process now so that they’re not waiting until the last minute for storage. It’s not like buying seed or chemical. Storage is a long-term investment and it needs to be treated as such. It involves a plan and that planning needs to start early.”

Digvir Jayas agrees. He is a professor emeritus of biosystems engineering at the University of Manitoba who was recognized by Engineers Canada in 2022 with a gold medal for his work on finding better ways to dry and store grain.

Jayas says keeping grain in the best condition possible during storage season is critically important as it can have a huge impact on a farmer’s marketing efforts.

“If you don’t store it properly and you have that deterioration, the market to sell that grain is reduced,” says Jayas, who is also a member of the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.

“The market is reduced to sell that grain because it can’t be used for the kind of products that (higher-grade) grain would be able to make or it would require a process adjustment or blending from other sources of grains, and it becomes more difficult to sell.

“If you store it properly, it’s much easier to market because your product is top-notch quality.”

Grainews asked Jayas and Johnston for grain storage tips. Here’s what they had to say.

Cool and dry

A key consideration is ensuring grain is kept cool and dry. Moisture content levels should not exceed 13 per cent for wheat or 12.5 per cent for barley during warmer-season months.

Storage temperatures should not typically exceed 20 C. Safe storage condition charts for most cereal crops are available via the Canadian Grain Commission.

Jayas says keeping stored grain cool is important because it “greatly increases the storage life of the grain and (helps) maintain quality longer” while reducing the chance of insect and mould problems.

A bin aeration fan can help in this effort. Jayas advises farmers to ensure the fan is properly sized for the bin in which it is installed. If capacity is too low, it may not dry the grain in the time available in the fall. He says fan size should be based on initial moisture content at harvest and the date of the harvest.

Johnson advises farmers to schedule regular monitoring of grain in bins and make it part of someone’s role on the farm.

That job has become much easier over the past decade, thanks to monitoring systems that can detect temperature and moisture levels within a bin. They send alerts to a computer or mobile device when warming or spoilage occurs and a fan can then be started remotely.

Most monitoring systems use cables that are inserted into grain and send feedback on what’s occurring during storage. Jayas recommends as many as five of these cables should be used within a bin — one in the centre and others in east-west and north-south directions between the centre and wall of the bin. This ensures all sections are properly monitored.

Farmers have a few options if they receive a spoilage warning from a monitoring system. They can turn on the fan to lower grain temperature and maintain it at a lower temperature until the problem is taken care of. If the problem appears to be in the centre of the bin, it may be resolved by removing that portion of the grain.

While monitors are standard in most newer large-capacity bins, many older, smaller bins don’t have sensors. Outside of physically checking each bin on a regular basis, Johnson recommends producers inspect the bin to see how much snow is on its roof in the winter.

“The old adage is, if there’s snow on the roof of the bin in the wintertime, you’re in a good spot,” he says. “Typically, if it’s warm in the bin and there is spoilage happening, it’s generating heat and it’s creating heat on the roof of the bin. If there was any snow, it would just melt off. If all the snow is melted off, you may want to check that bin.”

Insects

Temperatures in Western Canada are usually cool enough to kill insects that may find their way into storage bins during the winter. However, infestations can still occur the following year as temperatures climb in spring and summer.

In such a scenario, Jayas says farmers can use a chemical fumigant. Among the most common of those, phosphine can kill most pests within three to four days. He suggests farmers hire a licensed fumigator to apply it, since exposure can cause serious health complications.

Another option is compressed carbon dioxide in the form of dry ice or compressed gas, which can take seven to 10 days to kill insects.

Maintenance

Johnson says routine bin maintenance is often neglected or forgotten. A simple step is to remove potential hazards in and around grain bins early in the season so harvest can take place quickly and safely.

Aeration fans should also be regularly inspected and cleaned; rodents, small animals and insects can get into open units and create all sorts of problems. The same advice applies to grain dryers, especially if they’re not being used every year.

While grain augers are indispensable, they are often parked in fields for much of the year. Johnson recommends they be inspected before harvest each year to ensure they are greased, have motors in good working condition and belts properly tightened.

Bigger bins

Western Canada was once known as the hopper bin capital of the world, in part because so many different crops require segregation.

That has changed as farms have grown larger and now produce more bushels of the same crops. As a result, many farmers have moved to larger, flat-bottom storage structures. These newer bins measure 36 to 54 feet in diameter and have storage capacities of 25,000 to 72,000 bushels.

While these newer bins offer an assortment of bells and whistles, the general maintenance requirements are the same, according to Johnson. He says farmers should make it a priority to conduct periodic inspections of the rooftop area to confirm it is free of debris and operating properly, including the filler cap.

“We get a lot of wind in Western Canada and in some cases the wind can pull open those caps,” he says. “Farmers want to make sure they definitely take a look at the springs on their filler caps to ensure that they’re in good working order on those larger bins.”

Cleaning

Jayas and Johnson both stress the importance of cleaning bins before storing new grain.

Jayas says cleaning a storage structure is important because insects can survive in debris and leftover grain, then re-infest new grain.

Johnson says most newer flat-bottom bins are “fairly self-cleaning.” They often require only a quick sweep inside if they’re being used to store the same crop in consecutive years.

However, he says, they require more significant cleaning if they are being used to store a different crop from the one held previously. That’s especially true for seed growers, who should do a detailed cleaning inside.

Helpful advice

Johnson has one final piece of advice when it comes to grain storage: don’t be afraid to ask for help.

“Utilizing the support that’s out there is important. We have many folks in Western Canada on our AGI team that are experts when it comes to aeration and grain drying. Those people need to be leaned on for advice throughout the year. Reach out for help if you have questions.”

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Winnipeg-based Ag Growth International (AGI) said Monday it has signed a conditional letter of intent with Phoenix-based MyLand Co., which would see the Canadian firm take up a minority stake in MyLand and a seat on the U.S. company’s board of directors.

AGI, in return, will set up “at least five” new MyLand systems on grain operations in North America.

Once it has “satisfactory technical and commercial validation” of those installations in hand, AGI said it plans to enter manufacturing, distribution, engineering and software service support agreements with MyLand.

MyLand’s “Soil-as-a-Service” process extracts live, native microorganisms from a client grower’s soil and “rapidly” reproduces those organisms on-site.

MyLand’s equipment ties directly into a client farm’s irrigation system, using it to deliver “mass quantities” of those microorganisms back into fields’ soils on a continuous basis.

In the soil, the microbes then “continue to propagate, building the foundation for healthy soil and optimal growing conditions.”

MyLand says its systems are currently built to handle up to 1,000 acres each and have an expected useful life of about 15 years. Client farms pay monthly subscription-type fees for the service over contract terms of between two and five years.

In a release, AGI CEO Tim Close said the company believes its AGI SureTrack bin monitoring, crop maintenance and quality control system will, over time, “be able to capture the advanced information on soil health and irrigation system activity to create a new layer of standardized data that can be used to support a variety of sustainability-related objectives.”

AGI, whose grain handling, storage and conditioning brands include Westeel, Twister, Westfield, Batco and Ezee-Dry, “is an ideal partner for MyLand at this stage of our growth,” MyLand CEO Peter Williams said in the same release.

“The potential to provide solutions for large-scale row crops, with significant dedicated acreage, is a core opportunity for MyLand. AGI’s deep roots and expertise in this area, in addition to the resources and capabilities of a multi-national firm, make them a perfect partner for us to rapidly expand our platform and reach new customers globally.”

MyLand this year began moving past the product development and testing phases with plans to roll out its systems on farms mainly in the southwestern U.S., such as in California, Arizona and Texas.

The company says its systems’ use results in “increases in soil organic matter, porosity, water holding capacity, soil aggregation, carbon storage, and even worm population (and) allows the percolation of salt to much lower levels in the soil.”

The resulting improvement in soil structure “reduces the need for tillage, soil amendments, fertility products, and irrigation,” the company says. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Fibreco Export Inc., a wood fibre exporter majority-owned by forest products firm Tolko Industries, said in a release Saturday that “one of our new agricultural product silos experienced a structural failure during loading” at Port Metro Vancouver on Friday at about 2:15 p.m. PT.

Fibreco has been building a grain export operation at its bulk handling facility on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, as part of a 20-year terminal services agreement reached in 2017 with Regina pulse processor AGT.

“We are pleased to confirm no one was injured and that we effectively deployed our emergency response protocol,” Fibreco said Saturday, thanking the District of North Vancouver (DNV) Fire Rescue Services for its “quick response to our request for assistance. Together we were able to promptly secure the area and evacuate the site.”

RCMP and DNV personnel set up a “collapse zone” around the site, DNV Fire Rescue Services said Friday on Twitter, also praising an “excellent job by the on-site team to account for all staff.”

Fibreco said Saturday it’s “working with various government organizations to investigate the cause and concurrently developing a plan to safely resume operations as soon as possible.”

Also planning to look into the cause of the collapse is grain handling and storage equipment manufacturer Ag Growth International (AGI), which confirmed Tuesday it had built the bin and 14 others at the site.

The Westeel bin that collapsed was “part of a new bin line that was developed and manufactured by the company over the past two years in response to market demand,” AGI said in a release Wednesday, describing the product as “a larger version” of its standard hopper bin line.

Winnipeg-based AGI emphasized the new bin line is “unique and distinct” from the rest of its product lines, including its other grain storage bin products, and “is not in place or being sold to any other customers.”

A similar product installed for a “substantially different application” at a different site for a different customer “suffered a failure” in May last year, AGI said, adding the cause in that case also remains “unknown at this time.”

In the wake of the May 2019 incident, AGI said Wednesday, it “undertook an extensive engineering re-evaluation of the product prior to inclusion in two additional applications.”

Specifically, along with the 15 bins at the Fibreco site, another 20 have been made and supplied to another customer “but have not yet been commissioned,” AGI said Wednesday, putting the total sales value of the 35 bins at $19.1 million.

Without naming Fibreco in its release Wednesday, AGI said the “customer at the facility where the incident occurred has asserted AGI’s responsibility for the collapse.”

However, AGI said, “the cause of and any responsibility for the incident have not yet been determined” and the “recovery, investigation and remediation may take a number of months to complete.”

“We have reacted immediately, moving to work with our customers to discover the cause of this incident,” AGI CEO Tim Close said Wednesday.

“Once recovery of the site has been completed the investigation will provide the facts for us to determine the required remediation and the impact on AGI.”

In a separate statement Tuesday, AGI also said it “will be investigating all bins in the product line” as part of its standard protocol.

Fibreco’s site plan, as laid out in 2017, called for a total of forty-eight 3,400-tonne capacity bins and eight 1,000-tonne capacity bins to be built at the site, for total storage of 171,200 tonnes, in place of where Fibreco previously kept two large woodchip piles. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Winnipeg-based AGI announced Thursday it has bought all outstanding shares in Oakville, Ont.-based Affinity Management Ltd., developer of the Compass brand of farm and agribusiness management software, among other business management tools.

Affinity, which was founded by Neal Dilawri in 2007 and built up through partnership with chemical firm BASF, today has 18 employees. Dilawri will now take a “senior leadership role” working on the AGI SureTrack platform and provide “vision and guidance” going forward, AGI said.

The Compass product line, which today serves over 8,000 individual farmers across North America, includes an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for growers and ag retailers and an agronomy tool, AGI said.

The ERP system “provides full accounting functionality, including management of accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll and inventory tracking.”

The Compass system, AGI said, “also acts as a central data repository and portal which allows for the sharing of information with a grower’s trusted advisors, including agronomists, accountants, lenders, and insurance providers.”

Affinity’s staff also includes accountants who provide bookkeeping services to the company’s grower customers, AGI said.

The Compass product suite is “highly complementary to AGI’s current offering and will be a key component of the full AGI SureTrack platform.”

The SureTrack platform, formerly known as Intellifarms, includes the SureTrack Farm system for use by farmers and the SureTrack Pro system for use by processors, merchandisers and grain buyers to source product directly from farms.

The platform is meant to bring together data from “across the farm, providing our customers with the ability to manage their crop production, manage their overall business, and market their grain based on content and robust traceability,” AGI CEO Tim Close said in Thursday’s release.

Compass, he said, “takes AGI SureTrack to the next level, adding comprehensive ERP capabilities for AGI dealers and agriculture retailers, and significantly adding to our offering for farmers.”

In an update Thursday on its fourth-quarter financials, AGI said it has “demonstrated the success of its AGI SureTrack subscription model” in 2019, by “increasing retail equivalent sales by 70 per cent, despite capacity constraints and a challenging U.S. ag market.”

In 2020, the company added, “that growth is expected to continue as AGI builds on existing relationships with processors, merchandisers, grain buyers and producers throughout North America.”

Investments in sales, marketing and technical resources for AGI SureTrack are meant to “address capacity and accelerate the future pace of new user additions, thereby increasing our recurring revenue stream and adding significant equipment cross-sell opportunities.”

Financial terms of AGI’s deal for Affinity weren’t disclosed in Thursday’s release, except to say the purchase was “funded from the company’s operating facilities.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Winnipeg-based AGI announced Tuesday it had agreed to make a “minority equity investment” of US$15 million (C$19.57 million) in Farmobile, effective Wednesday.

Neither company said how much of an equity stake $15 million would buy, percentage-wise, but AGI noted the deal comes with the right to appoint two directors to Farmobile’s board.

Farmobile provides hardware and software for real-time collection, organization, analysis and storage of farm data, such as its PUC IoT (Internet of Things) device, which collects and streams agronomic and machine data from most makes and models of field equipment.

Data farmers collect through Farmobile equipment can be converted into standardized field records for sharing with trusted advisors or for monetizing through the Farmobile DataStore exchange, the company’s digital marketplace.

The Kansas City-area company’s revenue comes from Farmobile PUC subscriptions and data licensing.

Since launching PUC in 2014, Farmobile said it “has collected more point-by-point farm data, including detailed agronomic data for planting, harvesting, foraging, spraying, and spreading; field data; and location data, from more sources than anyone else in the industry.”

“Our investment in Farmobile substantially expands our technology platform and integrates automated data collection seamlessly within our IntelliFarms SureTrack farm management and grain exchange platform,” AGI CEO Tim Close said in the company’s release.

The SureTrack system — which came to AGI when it took over Missouri-based tech firm IntelliFarms in March — features suites of sensors “from the field to grain bins” allowing farmers to manage operations with real-time field activity data, grain handling, storage and conditioning equipment and marketing and price discovery options.

“Agriculture is evolving faster than ever before, and data is at the core of the progress we have made and the progress we will make in years to come,” Close said separately in Farmobile’s release Wednesday.

“The power of a company like Farmobile is that they enable access to insights that have previously been locked inside of machines or left in the field due to the challenge of data collection and transfer.”

“In a precision ag world, data is a crucial system of record for every pass on a field, which quickly turns into a system of orchestration to enable better in-field management decisions,” Farmobile CEO Jason Tatge said in that company’s release Wednesday.

“AGI understands that, so we are thrilled to have a partner and investor like AGI as we continue on our mission to help unlock the full potential of data in agriculture.”

AGI’s grain handling and storage equipment brands include Westfield, Wheatheart and AGI augers, Westeel and Twister bins and Batco and Hi Roller conveyors, among others. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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