Facility Feature
Family-Owned For A Century
Manning Grain adds two McPherson jumpform concrete tanks, Chief dryer leg, and related legs and conveyors.
Not many family-owned companies still are owned by the same family nearly a century later.
However, that describes Manning Grain Co., founded in 1924 by Earl L. Manning and headed today by Earl’s grandson, President Kent Manning. Not only that, but the majority of the grain handler’s employees are family members, and most family employees live a short walk from their elevator in the tiny village of Burress, NE, near the intersection of two unpaved roads southeast of Fairmont, NE.
Manning Grain, which operates its own 7-mile-long short-line railroad connecting to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe in Fairmont, still finds occasion to expand in its remote location.
The most recent expansion at Burress was in 2021 with the addition of two McPherson jumpform concrete tanks; a new receiving pit, leg, and distributor; and a new wet leg serving an existing 4,700-bph Brock grain dryer.
“We just needed more storage capacity at harvest,” says Kent Manning. “We had the smaller of the two tanks completed in time for the 2020 harvest and the other in time for the 2021 harvest.”
The new tanks were constructed by McPherson Concrete Storage Systems, McPherson, KS (800-999-8151), which has built much of the jumpform concrete storage in the area.
CL Construction, LLC, Wahoo, NE (402-440-2212), and C & A Millwrights, Grand Island, NE (308-227-1369), served as the millwrights on the project.
Dirt work on the project began in May 2020, and the first of the two tanks, a 1.075-million-bushel dry tank was done for the 2020 harvest. The second, a 344,000-bushel wet tank, was completed in time for the 2021 harvest.
Expansion Specifications
The larger of the two McPherson tanks is 112 feet in diameter and 124 feet tall.
The flat-bottom tank is outfitted with a 16-inch, 10,000-bph AGI NexGen sweep auger; eight-cable Rolfes@Boone grain temperature monitoring system; and BinMaster radar-type level indicator. The tank has two sidedraw spouts.
A set of four 75-hp AGI-Airlanco centrifugal fans provide 1/9 cfm per bushel of aeration through in-floor ducting.
The smaller of the two tanks is 64 feet in diameter and 120 feet tall.
It is outfitted similarly to its larger counterpart, except it has two instead of four 75-hp centrifugal fans delivering 1/8 cfm per bushel of aeration, and four instead of eight temperature cables.
Due to soil conditions at the site, both of the new tanks rest atop Longfellow 248 13-inch auger cast pilings sunk 74 feet deep. CL constructed the foundations.
Grain Handling Equipment
Manning Grain employees pitched in to construct a new 1,500-bushel gravity receiving pit, the sixth at the Burress elevator.
The pit deposits grain into the boot section of a new Chief 25,000-bph receiving leg equipped with two rows of Maxi-Lift 16x8 heavy-duty buckets mounted on a 36-inch belt, a 200-hp Baldor motor, and Dodge speed reducer. The leg is self-supporting, attached to the wet tank. (C & A raised two existing 15,000-bph legs by 20 feet.)
The leg deposits grain into an electric Custom Metal Fabricators four-duct swing-type distributor atop an existing tower. The distributor reaches the new large tank via gravity spout and the smaller tank via Chief overhead 25,000-bph drag conveyor.
Once the level of grain drops below the sidedraw level, both tanks empty onto Chief 15,000-bph reclaim drag conveyors. These are housed in a below-ground tunnel, 7-1/2 feet tall by 8 feet wide, running back to the new receiving pit.
In addition, the crew from C & A Millwrights constructed a 7,700-bph Chief wet leg to serve the existing dryer.
Ed Zdrojewski, editor
Manning Grain co.
Burress, NE • 402-266-3701
Founded: 1924
Storage capacity: 6.7 million bushels at two locations
Annual volume: 6.7 million bushels
Number of employees: 5 full-time
Crops handled: Corn, soybeans
Services: Grain handling and merchandising, anhydrous ammonia, liquid fertilizer, general store
Key personnel:
Kent Manning, president
Tyler Manning, operations manager
Cindy Manning, office manager
Brooke Pribyl, merchandiser
Sam Zeleny, operations
Gary Vodicka, operations (part-time)
Burress Supplier List
Aeration fans • AGI Airlanco
Bin sweeps • AGI Hutchinson
Bucket elevators • Chief Agri
Catwalks • Chief Agri; CL Construction LLC
Concrete tanks • McPherson Concrete Storage Systems
Conveyors • Chief Agri
Distributor • Custom Metal Fabricators
Grain temp. system • Rolfes@Boone
Level indicators • BinMaster
Millwright • CL Construction LLC; C & A Millwrights
Motors • Baldor Motors
Pilings • Longfellow Foundations
Speed reducers • Dodge Industrial, Inc. Inc.
