Miller Magazine Issue: 132 December 2020

66 MILLER / december 2020 “The moisture affects the costs and the quality of the products. Knowing and subsequently controlling the water content of the material in every step of the process is necessary to improve efficiency, to reduce carbon footprint, and to save money. To achieve these results, sampling the material is not enough because the samples may not be representative of the full batch and the speed of the feedback process is not adequate. It is possible to achieve real-time control in the process with inline sensors.” Why should I care about moisture? Imagine a world where moisture does not matter, a world where you can harvest when you want, where mycotoxins do not affect stored products, where mills always operate at maximum efficiency, and final products are perfect. It sounds fabulous, but as is well-known in the agricultural, feed, and related industries, moisture is a determining factor in every pro- cess. Let us take a few steps back and have a brief overview of all the steps where it is pos- sible to increase profits and efficiency by cont- rolling the moisture. HARVESTING AND THRESHING Harvesting is the procedure where ripe crops are cut and picked up to then proceed with the Alessandro Mario Technical Sales Engineer Hydronix Ltd.