For millennia, agricultural civilizations have realized that the ability to store excess grain produced by bumper crops provides a safety buffer against lean years, or even just a long winter. The most famous ancient account of this idea is probably the biblical story in Genesis 41, in which Joseph advises Egypt to stockpile grain so that it may survive the seven years of predicted famine.
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Indeed, remains of ancient Egyptian storehouses are still in existence today. The same is true of those from ancient Greece, the Middle East, and North and South America.
Roman records indicate that pits stored grain in northern Africa. And the word &#;silo&#; actually comes from the Greek word &#;siros,&#; meaning &#;a pit to hold grain.&#;
Silos do much more than just hold dry grain or seed. They&#;re also responsible for one of the more important inventions in the history of modern agriculture: silage.
Developed through experiments in the s, silage is essentially a foliage crop&#;perhaps an entire corn stalk, perhaps an entire alfalfa plant, perhaps something else&#;that has been finely chopped and then stored while the moisture content is still high, somewhere near 60 percent.
Because of the moisture content, silage maintains a higher energy and protein level than dried forage (hay). This fact has made it possible for dairy farmers to keep cows in reliable milk production even during the winter.
But one caveat exists. You need a way to keep the silage from spoiling.
When farmers make hay, the key to preservation is to ensure low moisture content and to keep the hay dry. But farmers put silage up fresh, so the key to long-term silage storage involves keeping oxygen levels to a minimum.
The silo is the key to this process. In essence, silage is pickled.
Storing the silage in the low-oxygen environment of the silo encourages anaerobic microbes to ferment the forage product, but in a way that ruminants&#;including sheep, goats and, significantly, cattle&#;can still digest.
In theory, the fermentation process and the silo will protect the silage from rot. Silage is an excellent invention. Over the years, there have been a number of different solutions to the silage storage unit: the modern silo.
Let&#;s take a field guide approach and examine some of the modern (post-) silo types you might discover while exploring rural America.
Farmers experimented with silage for a few decades in the s, mostly using pits or square structures constructed inside existing barns. It wasn&#;t until the late s that John Steele, a member of the Wisconsin legislature, constructed the first round tower silo, dubbed the &#;Steele Silo.&#;
Agricultural scientist Franklin Hiram King of the Wisconsin Experimental Station furthered the innovation with his &#;King Silo&#; in .
The round tower silo is what most people have in mind when they think of a silo. Like lighthouses dotting a shoreline, tower silos have something of a charming appeal.
Even people who don&#;t know their use instantly recognize them. Plus, they&#;re iconic symbols of country life.
Round silos are beneficial for several reasons. For one thing, a circle is strong, especially when reinforced by steel bands the way most silos are.
All the weight of the grain in the silo (think of it as a form of pressure) pushes outward on the sides and tries to spill in all directions. A circle helps to prevent that. Also, the contents of early square silos suffered from extensive spoilage in the corners.
But round tower silos aren&#;t without their downsides. The very fermentation process that preserves silage can create gases that are unhealthy and hazardous to humans.
Some silos, particularly glass/steel silos, are very effective at keeping oxygen levels to a minimum. This can present a danger to anyone entering the silo for maintenance or inspection. Silage can also be a fire danger.
But this hasn&#;t prevented tower silos from achieving widespread use.
You can fins tower silos built using many different construction methods, some of which went in and out of style over the years.
Read more: Here are 4 ways to use silage tarps in vegetable production.
Wood
Wood silos were popular up until around , when they began to be replaced by other materials that were more resistant to deterioration from silage seepage.
Sometimes, they&#;re more octagonal or polygon-shaped than round. That&#;s likely because such shapes are easier to construct out of wood.
The wooden silos that still exist look quite beautiful and interesting&#;fascinating pieces of a moment in rural history that quickly disappeared.
Masonry
You might also see vintage silos of masonry construction, such as stone or brick. Some of these are quite attractive and unique.
These are often historical in nature, constructed during the experimental age of silos, when farmers sought alternatives to wood, but before concrete and glass/steel silos became the norm.
The cost of constructing a stone or brick silo was influenced by the need to hire masons for the work. But if the region was rich in stones, the material was readily available.
Concrete
Concrete was soon found to be an excellent construction material. And many classic tower silos are constructed of concrete walls with metal roofs. You&#;ll discover a few subvarieties here:
Stave concrete silos.
With these silos, individual blocks of interlocking concrete called staves are used to build the structure. These blocks are generally fairly thin, only about 3 inches thick, and steel bands reinforce the entire structure. Stave concrete silos are very common and still in use on some farms today.Poured concrete silos
. These are different. Here, the entire silo is constructed from a single monolithic piece, and the walls are thicker, about 6 inches. Poured concrete silos require large forms to construct, whereas staves can be made from a small mold.Concrete block silos.
Some older silos are made of concrete blocks that are much thicker than staves.Read more: Here are 4 reasons you need farm insurance for your hobby farm.
Starting around the s, silos constructed of glass-lined steel plates increased in popularity. Steel sheets bolted together and effectively encased in porcelain comprise the walls.
Silage is loaded into these distinctive silos from the top and removed from below by use of an unloader. Glass silos like these are known as low-oxygen silos, since they are very well sealed and contain plastic air bladders to further protect the silage from oxygen exposure.
The bladders allow the air pressure inside the silo to match that of the outdoors.
While still in use on some farms, glass silos haven&#;t maintained their former popularity, due possibly to competition from bunker silos. Also, the unloading mechanisms prove difficult and expensive to repair.
The square silo design predates the round tower silo. But, as noted, the design led to spoilage in the corners.
Eventually, farmers abandoned the concept of the square silo design. Today&#;s farmers, however, find merit in square silos once again.
With new innovations to prevent spoilage, modern square silos allow farmers to maximize their storage space. (Square silos hold about 25 precent more than round silos.)
These silos can contain different compartments, allowing storage of more than one product in the same silo. Also, they assemble much easier.
As iconic as tower silos have been for the last 100-plus years, and as useful as they may be for housing silage, times do change. And with them, technology changes, too.
Today&#;in a kind of return to the past&#;horizontal silos take the place of tower silos, especially for large agricultural operations.
While perhaps lacking the pastoral charm of a majestic tower silo, horizontal silos have proven their worth time and again in recent years for their functionality and effectiveness at storing large amounts of silage and keeping it safe.
Horizontal silos are also faster to unload&#;a critical factor that makes them more desirable on many of today&#;s farms.
Silage bunkers typically have two long, parallel concrete or wooden walls. You could find crops packed in and then sealed with plastic along a third wall on one end.
In an effort to squeeze additional oxygen out of the crop, farmers utilize large-wheeled tractors to drive back and forth across the silage bunkers during and after the filling process to help press oxygen out of the forage. Once filled, large plastic sheeting covers the bunker to seal against the air as much as possible.
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Finally, the plastic is weighed down, often with tire walls, but occasionally by other means such as sandbags. This weight functions to secure the plastic from wind and applies pressure to the silage, forcing out additional oxygen.
Properly loading and maintaining a silage bunker requires quite a bit of skill and research. Massive amounts of spoilage and dangerous avalanching of the silage can occur if incorrect procedures are used. But when constructed and filled properly, these structures allow safe storage&#;and faster removal for feeding&#;of huge quantities of feed.
It&#;s no wonder they&#;re so popular in larger agricultural settings.
Trench silos utilize essentially the same concept, except the bunker is dug into the ground instead of using walls built on top of it.
Read more: A hay moisture tester can help with storing your hay bales.
Another option similar to the silage bunker is a silage pile, sometimes known as a drive-over pile. This is sometimes used as backup solution during a bumper crop, when there is an excess of silage that won&#;t fit in the silo or bunker.
Some farms even use silage piles as primary silage storage. They provide permanent housing for the crop using nothing but a large concrete slab and adequate plastic covering.
As with silage bunkers, the pile is compressed by large-wheeled tractors in order to aid in oxygen removal. But without the concrete walls of a bunker, it&#;s more challenging to achieve the proper amount of compression.
Again, people often use tire walls to pin down the plastic covering.
It&#;s always nice to see vintage farm buildings restored. And if you own property with an older silo, you may be considering restoration.
But with silos, you must remember to take extra care and caution&#;preferably with the help of a silo expert. This is especially true if the silo is intended to be put back into use.
But even if the goal is simply to stabilize the structure, be sure to get an inspection and advice on any cracks, foundational issues, and corrosion that may have formed from years and years of silage acid on metal supports.
Restoration companies may fix leaning silos, apply acid-resistant coating, and do whatever else it takes to make the structure safe and functional again.
This article originally appeared in the September/October issue of Hobby Farms magazine.
Organizational silos are teams of people who are isolated from other parts of your business due to a minimized flow of information. In this article, we discuss a few ways you can organize your team to prevent silos from forming.
Enterprises are often organized by specific team function. This is known as an organizational structure, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Without the proper tools and integrations, segmenting your enterprise by function can create organizational silos. While strong organizational silos can cause communication issues, silos are not an inherently bad part of business.
An organizational silo is a team, department, or group of people that are segmented from the flow of information from other parts of your business. This can happen both intentionally and unintentionally. Organizational silos typically occur because different teams create unique processes and use their own specific tools to complete their work. This means that your engineering team&#;s workflow will look different than your marketing team&#;s work. Inadvertently, these teams end up siloed off from one another.
Silos can also happen to specific individuals. When an individual member of an organization holds essential information about a team or organization, this can contribute to a silo mentality. Silo mentality is a mindset where individuals or teams don&#;t share knowledge with one another, which can cause communication issues and make collaboration difficult. Most of the time, individuals don&#;t intentionally become silos. This often happens when small teams start to expand&#;the most tenured individual on the team can become the information silo if the team doesn&#;t standardize and document processes.
There are a few ways organizational silos can form, some of which are intentional, and some not. Here are a few examples of common organizational silos:
Departmental silo: This is when one department is siloed off from one another. Because enterprises are commonly organized by job function, this is the most common organizational silo.
Rank or level silo: This kind of silo occurs when individuals or teams withhold strategy, goals, or other important information from team members above or below them in level.
Location silo: These silos are created when teams are segmented by different office locations. Individuals who work together in the same office may share information in-person or ad hoc, and forget to share with others in different locations.
Schedule silo: For teams that work different shifts or different hours, information silos can exist based on which shift a team member is on. New information could be conveyed to those working the day shift, but not to members working on the night shift.
Silos are not inherently bad for business&#;it&#;s important to provide organizational structure for different departments. Good silos can help contribute to a positive company culture, effective communication, and more efficient working practices.
However, silos can be negatively reinforced through turf wars, unclear vision, and a lack of communication. This can lead to decreased interactions with necessary teams, duplicative work, and resistance to change. If this is the case, it&#;s important for you to break down silos and bridge a connection between the two teams.
In this ebook, learn how to structure your organization to prevent silos, move faster, and stay aligned in the face of change.
Get the insightsOrganizational silos can form in a variety of different ways. Here are a few ways they form and solutions on how you can break silos down to encourage more collaboration in the workplace.
When team leaders have a silo mentality, this attitude can trickle down to their direct reports. Leading by example is infectious, and if their leader has negative judgments about a certain team, it can quickly affect the rest of their direct reports. This contributes to unnecessary competition, miscommunications, and a more hostile work environment.
How to fix this: When working with leadership teams, be sure to establish clear, company-wide goals. This provides leaders with a clear idea of what the end-goal is&#;and how their specific team&#;s goals contribute to one part of a larger picture. In this design, it&#;s easier to understand how each team is responsible for a small part of the bigger picture and why they need to work together. The focus is on accomplishing a larger goal instead of competing against each other.
Without centralized tooling, each team will adopt their own tools and processes to complete their work. This is fine for working internally within a specific department, but can cause challenges when working cross-functionally. External teams don&#;t necessarily have the same process, so this can cause an information silo.
Without a central system of record, there&#;s no way for cross-functional teams to share information or communicate with others. Teams lose information across different communication platforms and miscommunication. This can lead to missed deadlines, lost documentation, and duplicative work.
How to fix this: Establish a central system of record through a work management platform. If your team currently has no set processes for communication, be sure to implement change management best practices to ensure that everyone in your organization understands how to use the platform. Once your work management platform is implemented, be sure to include training on how to use the platform when onboarding new employees. This sets expectations for what communication goes where, and how teams collaborate.
Establishing incentives is a common way to encourage team members to reach towards a common goal. But if the work the incentive encourages doesn&#;t align with company goals, team members could be contributing solely for the incentive.
For example, imagine a leader establishes an incentive for a marketing team. The team lead tells team members that they&#;ll receive a small bonus for every sign-up they receive on a specific webinar. While this sounds like a good way to encourage new sign-ups, team members can game the system by encouraging as many people to sign-up for the webinar, regardless of how qualified they are. This form of extrinsic motivation isn&#;t necessarily a bad thing, but it shouldn&#;t be the only motivation your team should have.
How to fix this: If implementing a form of extrinsic motivation like an incentive, ensure they are specific enough to connect to overarching company goals. It&#;s also important to encourage your team&#;s individual intrinsic motivation&#;if you see team members show interest in a certain project or work, be sure to foster that curiosity and encourage their interests.
A team that doesn&#;t have a common goal is like a boat in open water without any form of locating equipment. Without a common goal, individual departments develop individual strategies without collaborating with other teams. This lack of big picture thinking causes duplicative work, inefficient processes, and a disorganized working environment.
How to fix this: Establish team goals and clearly indicate how they ladder up into larger company goals. The best way to do this is to use collaboration tools that connect the work your team completes to company goals.
In this ebook, learn how to structure your organization to prevent silos, move faster, and stay aligned in the face of change.
Get the insightsHere are a few tips you can use to help organize your company in a way that prevents harmful silos and encourages cross-collaborative communication.
One of the easiest ways to break down organizational silos is to simply build a bridge with clear communication. When this starts with the leadership team, the entire organization has a good example of how the flow of information should go, how team collaboration works, and how the organizational culture contributes to achieving goals. When the leadership team leads by example, their direct reports will mimic their behavior. The more people who communicate effectively in your organization, the better.
If you want your team to be comfortable working and connecting with teams outside their own, make sure that they have opportunities to do that. Establish cross-functional tiger teams for specific projects, or regularly connect with cross-functional partners to ensure that bonds stay strong. Create best practices for how to communicate with other departments and lay the foundation for a long-lasting partnership.
One of the easiest ways to ensure your different teams are sharing information is to establish one central system of record. When everyone has access to the different work that cross-functional teams are working on, it&#;s much harder for silos to form. This kind of transparency helps cross-collaborative teams better strategize their work together.
It&#;s not just about setting goals, it&#;s about setting goals that your team can actually achieve. Make sure to use measurable goal setting techniques like SMART goals or OKRs so that cross-collaborative team leaders can create complementary strategies and prevent duplicative work. Once goals are set, connect the work your team completes to those measurable results. By directly connecting your team&#;s work to those measurable goals, you can help them understand how their work matters.
No one team should have control in decision making&#;establish ways for teams that commonly work together to have some checks and balances, so there isn&#;t a monopoly on decision making. While not a common occurrence, it is possible for one team to dominate over another if they have more resources, or a higher stake in the matter. One way to ensure that everyone has a say regardless of what team they are on is to use group decision making techniques.
Increase cross-functional collaboration and optimize your organizational structure to help teams stay aligned. That way, teams can focus less on duplicative work and managing interpersonal relationships between teams, and more on the knowledge work that&#;s required to hit your goals.
In this ebook, learn how to structure your organization to prevent silos, move faster, and stay aligned in the face of change.
Get the insightsContact us to discuss your requirements of Dry bulk storage silos. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.