Happening upon a story in a farm magazine, having a farm site close to high-powered electric wires and a federal grant have combined to make Warren Krohn’s life a lot easier when harvest season rolls around this fall.

The bonus is he’ll be saving money and energy in the process.

The Nicollet County farmer has been awarded a $49,540 grant and a $49,540 guaranteed loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant and loan will help cover the costs of replacing his old propane-powered corn-drying system with a more efficient natural air-drying system that’s powered by electricity.

Even though he’s going to be able to dry a lot more corn at one time and will have several more fans blowing air through the millions of kernels, the cost for running the new drying bins will be much less. When the costs for running an auger to move the corn and the propane burned to dry it are figured in, Krohn could be saving an estimated 20 cents to 50 cents per bushel.

“We won’t be using half the energy we did last year,” Krohn said. “It takes from one third to one quarter of the energy of my old propane dryer.”

Once the concrete floors are poured, Krohn will have three 30,000-bushel bins, one 20,000-bushel bin and one 10,000-bushel bin installed. All of the bins will have large 90 horsepower drying fans, one for each 10,000 bushels it holds, that can constantly blow 2 cubic feet of air per bushel through the corn.

It takes 30 days to dry a bin full of moist corn down to the moisture level grain elevators and ethanol plants want it to be on delivery. It took less time with the old propane dryer, but Krohn said he could only dry four or five bushels at a time. He’d also have to get up early in the morning to fill the holding tank for the dryer if he wanted to keep it running 24 hours per day.

With the new bins, Krohn will be able to store and dry 120,000 bushels of corn. If his corn crops are yielding around 200 bushels per acre, he will be able to harvest 600 acres all at once.

“I’ll be able to harvest the corn when it’s ready and not have to wait until I’m able to dry it,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who don’t think it will work, but they don’t understand how much power these fans have. I have a neighbor who has one of these, he’s had it for eight years, and he says he loves it.”

The purpose of the USDA grants is to promote energy efficiency and reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, said Adam Czech, a USDA spokesman. Minnesota is leading the country with its production and use of ethanol and other renewable fuels, so it also leads the country in the number of grants received each year.

The state has received $18 million in Rural Development Renewable Energy Grants since the program started in 2003. A total of $4 million was issued to Minnesota farmers and small businesses last year alone.

To qualify for the grant, a farmer or small-business owner needs to have a project that uses a renewable energy source, such as ethanol or electricity generated from a wind turbine, or improves fuel efficiency, said Lisa Noty, a USDA business and cooperative specialist.

“I think it’s all related to the country’s Energy Independence Initiative,” she said.

Krohn hadn’t heard of the grant until he read a story about a woman receiving one in a farm magazine. He called her and she told him to contact an Iowa grant writer she had used to request her grant.