Overview
Tasmanian Seed Dressing and Storage was established in 2012, having purchased the seed processing business from Roberts (Rural Co), providing services including the cleaning and grading a diverse range of crops including Ryegrass, Pulses, Cereals, Oils Seeds, Brassicas and Vegetable Seeds. They also process specialty seeds such as Industrial hemp seed and poppy seed.
In 2018 they wanted to review their current seed drying process to achieve a better-quality product, so they installed Alvan Blanch DF9000 Continuous Flow Seed Dryer.
The Challenge
Tasmania Seed Dressing and Storage located in Carrick Tasmania, required a dryer for specialty crops without damaging or losing the important seed oil content. With the existing batch drying process offsite, there were endless inconsistencies in the evenness of the drying throughout the batch. Seed would suffer from significant clumping and inconsistent drying resulting in mould spores and heated clumping of seeds. This produced a poor drying result and loss of seed quality and higher cleanout percentages.
The Solution
Tasmania Seed Dressing and Storage and Ananda Food looked for a better drying solution for their product, so they contacted Alvan Blanch Australia for a better understanding of the Alvan Blanch Continuous Flow Dryer and how it could perform with these products. The Alvan Blanch dryer provided good flowability of the seed and the easy-to-use controls of the dryer made the machine simple to operate. They could see by implementing a wireless data feed from the dryer through to office computers, it would give better real time monitoring and control of the dryer ensuring the quality results they were seeking.
The Outcome
Morgan Leith General Manager of Tasmania Seed Dressing and Storage explained that the dryer was installed primarily to dry high moisture hemp seed allowing them safely to store and later process the seed. Morgan said “the moisture reductions required ranged from 2 percent to as much as 20 percent. We have been able to achieve these levels of dry down in one pass without compromising oil profiles or seed quality.”
Immediately following the commissioning of the dryer, they reported significant changes to seed quality and results of the drying process compared to seed previously received from the other batch dryers.
“All things considered, I am very impressed with this form of drying and we now dry significant quantities of all commodities ranging from Ryegrass to cereals, pulses and oil seeds through the Alvan Blanch continuous flow dryer without any issues. I highly recommend this dryer to anyone seeking quality drying results” Mr Leath summarised.
Morgan Leath, General Manager
Tasmania Seed Dressing and Storage.
