IDENTIFICATION AND SEGREGATION OF HIGH-VALUE SOYBEANS AT A COUNTRY ELEVATOR

For three harvest seasons, 1989-1991, a whole-grain near-infrared tran smission analyzer was used at a large Iowa elevator to measure oil and protein content of unground soybeans. In the third year, soybeans wer e physically sorted on the basis of the sum of protein and oil. The su m is a direct measure of processor revenue potential. The top 23% (app roximately 150,000 bu or 4500 MT) of soybeans were isolated from the l ower 77%. The ''high-value'' beans (with sum 0.7 percentage points abo ve the average) were isolated for future sale to a processor. The anal yzer performed accurately and required about 1.5 min per test. Compare d to the normal 1.0 min per test for moisture measurement, this caused an additional delay of about 30 s per load for farmers, which is a si gnificant cost over the 100-300 loads per day received by the elevator . Because this was a new program for elevator employees, errors in dat a transcription and communication reduced the value difference of the high-sum beans from its theoretical maximum of 1.2 percentage points, but the high-value beans still had a theoretical 10 cent/bushel advant age over average unsegregated beans delivered to that elevator. Cost a ccounting showed the testing and segregation to cost about 2-3 cents p er bushel. Testing and segregation is feasible in the U.S. grain marke t.