Choosing a Grain Monitoring System: 10 Questions to Ask

A grain monitoring system is an investment you’ll live with for years. The brochures all sound similar, so here are ten questions that separate a system that protects your grain from one that just produces numbers.

1. What does it measure, and where?

Temperature alone is a start. Temperature and humidity at multiple levels lets you calculate moisture through the grain. A headspace CO₂ sensor adds the earliest warning of spoilage. Ask how many levels are measured per silo, and how far apart.

2. Does it calculate moisture for my crops?

Moisture estimated from temperature and humidity depends on the crop. Canola, wheat, barley, lentils and others behave very differently. Ask which commodities are supported and whether you can set the crop for each silo.

3. Does it judge the wettest layer or the average?

A silo average can hide a wet band. The system should show every layer and flag the worst one.

4. How does data get off the farm?

Most systems use a wireless sensor network and a gateway. Ask what range to expect on your site, what internet connection the gateway needs, and what happens if that connection drops. Options like cellular, Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Starlink give flexibility.

5. How are the sensors powered?

Solar-powered nodes avoid running power to every silo and avoid frequent battery changes. Ask how long the system runs through cloudy weeks.

6. Will it fit my existing silos?

Retrofitting to the silos you already have should be simple. Ask how cables are installed, whether sizes suit your silo heights, and who does the install.

7. What alerts does it send, and to whom?

Look for alerts by SMS, email and push notification, with control over who receives what. A good system tells you why it’s alerting, not just that a number changed.

8. Can it control my aeration fans?

Monitoring tells you there’s a problem. Controlling aeration lets you act. Ask whether the system can run fans on suitable air, retrofit to your existing switchboard, and still allow manual override.

9. Can it run aeration automatically from the grain data?

The next step is closed-loop control: using what’s happening inside the silo to decide when fans run. That’s what makes set-point drying and protection against re-wetting possible.

10. Who supports it, and where are they?

Ask who installs and services the system, how quickly they respond in harvest, and whether the dashboard is accessible from anywhere. Ask about data ownership and security, too — your storage data is yours.

How SiloSense answers these

SiloSense offers three products that build on each other:

• SiloSense IQ — temperature and humidity at multiple levels, headspace CO₂, moisture for 12+ commodities, solar-powered LoRaWAN, and alerts by SMS, email and push.
• Aeration Manager — retrofit fan control from your existing switchboard, with Forced Run, Automatic, Auto Protect and manual override — or a custom control cabinet for sites that need one.
• SiloSense IQ+ — the two combined, with in-silo data running aeration automatically, set-point drying and a moisture guard.

Request a demo and ask us all ten.