TRACTORS  MACHINERY • DRAINAGE • IRRIGATION • SOIL CONSERVATION
BUILDINGS    •    FARM ELECTRIFICATION    •    CROP DRYING AND PROCESSING
Purdue University
Agricultural Experiment Station
Lafayette, Indiana

AE-45
March 4, 1958
HERMETIC STORAGE OF HIGH MOISTURE CORN
IN PLASTIC-LINED BINS
G. W. Isaacs, I. J. Ross, E. R. Baugh (l)
Hermetic storage, sometimes called gastight, sealed or airtight
storage, is the storage of an agricultural product in a tight container to prevent exchange of oxygen with the atmosphere. If little or no
oxygen is present, the heating that takes place in high moisture grain
in open storage does not occur. Furthermore, most storage molds, insects, and rodents cannot grow under the low-oxygen conditions in hermetic storage.
Corn stored at 21% moisture in glass-lined hermetic storage in
1949 was found by Foster et al. (2) to have maintained its feeding
quality for swine after two yearTs storage at 21% moisture content.
High moisture corn stored hermetically is not suitable for marketing
even after drying, since it develops a fermented odor, a softer texture, a darker color, and will not germinate.
Plastic Film as a Means of Making Open Storage Hermetic
Research was started in 1955 to develop a low cost method of converting conventional open shelled corn storages to airtight storages
for high moisture corn. Exploratory work was done the first year with
several small plastic film bags containing about ten pounds of high
moisture corn each. These experiments showed that shelled corn from
25 to 30$ moisture content could be successfully stored.
In October, 1956, larger scale studies were undertaken with the
storage of 500 bushels of 25$ moisture corn in a cylindrical sheet
metal bin. A large plastic bag of polyethylene plastic (6 mil. thickness) was made into a bag to serve as an airtight liner for the steel
bins (Figure 1).
(1) The authors are respectively Associate Professor and Instructor
of Agricultural Engineering Department and Superintendent of the
Purdue Throckmorton Farm.
(2) Foster G. H., Kaler H. A., Whistler R. L., Effects on Corn of
Storage in Airtight Bins. Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Vol
3, No. 8:682 (1955)