Batch drying of cuphea seeds

Fresh mechanically harvested cuphea seed from the Midwest contains more than 50% moisture. Such high moisture leads to challenging drying problems. Cuphea seeds must be dried immediately to reduce moisture before destructive seed mold and material-clumping develop. A method had to be developed to batch dry large quantities of cuphea seeds. The freshly harvested, wet, uncleaned seeds were dried using a Grain Technology 245XL Dryer. Drier conditions were optimized over a 2 year period to yield a procedure for a batch drying process. In this process, the grain dryer was modified to help meet the demands of a small seed that has greater than 50% moisture at harvest. The seed moisture data was collected on a low-cost, commercially available G-7 Grain Moisture Meter, which can be used for different crops. The meter showed a strong correlation between the soybean setting and actual cuphea moisture content (%) measured in the lab when seed moisture was less than 20%. The cuphea seeds were dried to about 12% for storage.