A Checklist for Loading a Farm Grain Truck

A farm truck that leaks, overweights an axle, or hides a wet hopper is a pricing problem disguised as a driving problem. The grain you lose on the road never reaches the scale. The grain you cannot prove was dry gets discounted when it does. This checklist is the quiet pass before the tarp goes on. Moisture still decides a large part of the check, as explained at https://goodsandgrain.trade/grain-moisture-shrink-explained.

The box, the gate, and the seals

Walk around the box in daylight. Look for holes along the floor, gaps at the gate, and tarps that no longer cover the corners. Sorghum and other small kernels will use a gap that corn ignored, but corn fines will use it too. A flashlight from underneath, with the box empty, shows leaks you will not see once the grain is in.

Check that the gate actually closes. A gate that rests on debris stays open a finger's width. That finger is a trail of grain from the field to the elevator, and it is your grain.

What you loaded, hopper by hopper

If the trailer has more than one compartment, know which bin or which field went in each. A wet wagon dumped into one hopper will not be cured by dry grain in the others. The probe at the elevator is designed to find that hopper. Sampling patterns are described at https://goodsandgrain.trade/probe-sampling-a-grain-truck.

Do not load screenings on the bottom and clean grain on top and call the load uniform. Write the source on a note you keep in the cab. When the ticket comes back worse than you expected, the note tells you which bin to stop.

Weight, axles, and the road

Know the legal weights for the roads you will use, and load so you are inside them. An overweight truck is a fine and a delay, and a spilled load is a loss with paperwork attached. Grain density changes with test weight and moisture. A box that was legal on dry corn can be heavy on a wetter, denser load that fills the same volume. If you are guessing, weigh before you are on the highway.

Tarp the load. Grain that blows off is shrink you will not see on a moisture table. It is also a hazard to the driver behind you.

Insects, odor, and the last load

Smell the empty box before you load. A sour or fumigated smell from a previous cargo can follow the next ticket, especially if the buyer is a food mill. Sweep what the last load left in the corners. Identity-preserved grain has no business sitting on someone else's variety.

If you see insects in the bin you are loading, stop and deal with the bin. Delivering the evidence to the scale does not make the discount smaller. It documents it.

Papers in the cab

Carry the information the elevator will ask: who is delivering, which contract if there is one, and any identity the buyer required. A truck that arrives without a contract number spends the receptionist's time and sometimes the driver's place in line. The line itself is a cost on a harvest day.

None of these checks improves a bad crop. They stop a decent crop from arriving as a worse sample than the one in the bin.

Frequently asked questions

Is a visual look from the cab enough?

No. Walk the gate, the floor, and the tarps, and know what went into each hopper. The sample will.

Why weigh if the elevator will weigh again?

So you do not discover an illegal axle on the road. The elevator scale is not a substitute for a legal load.

Should screenings stay in the load?

Only if the contract buys them. Otherwise they are foreign material you chose to haul.