Farm show exhibit displays bin technology

PEORIA, Ill. — A steady group of visitors stopped at the Grain Equipment Group booth on the opening day of the Greater Peoria Farm Show Dec. 3.

“The first day of the show has been great. We’ve had pretty steady traffic and lots of good sales leads,” said Joel Morgan, owner and CEO of Morgan Millwright Services and MVS Equipment Sales and their parent company, Grain Equipment Group.

The Wyoming, Illinois-based company’s territory covers most of northern Illinois and goes into Iowa, as well.

“We’ve been in the grain equipment building business for a long time. We started out as a millwright company, so basically just installation work. Anything grain equipment related, structural, buildings and things like that,” Morgan said.

“We’re now one of the main AGI dealers in northern Illinois. AGI has a whole family of companies and products they are offering — grain storage, grain handling, grain legs, conveyors, portable augers.”

On-farm grain storage has increased substantially over the past five-plus years , enabling farmers to streamline operations by reducing the need to deliver to local elevators and freeing up labor and equipment. It also provides a grain marketing tool. Morgan has seen that trend in northern Illinois.

“It’s good to have the opportunity to get the extra carry from the storage. The crops just keep getting bigger and bigger,” Morgan noted.

Storage technology has also seen major advances over the past decade with in-bin sensors to monitor moisture content, temperature and outside air, enabling the system to automatically choose the optimal times to runs heaters and fans.

“AGI has done a great job of accommodating that need. AGI’s SureTrack system monitors temperature and moisture in grain bins. It’s also the basis for our grain dryer remote controls, so it all ties neatly into one platform. We offer the full line of AGI SureTrack products,” he added.

Providing an all-in-one commercial and industrial equipment supplier, construction company, and agricultural service company, Grain Equipment Group has experienced great success and expansion over the years.

“I’m really proud of the team that we have. We have a lot of capability and talent and we cover a pretty big area,” Morgan said.