World's Tallest Silo?

World's Tallest Silo? SILOS Silos 22-6-13 You couldn't miss Dovan Farms' silo in southwestern Pennsylvania if you tried. The poured cement silo stands 132 ft. tall not counting the 15 ft. dome on top. It measures 30 ft. across and holds approximately 3,000 tons of corn silage. It was built last summer by Sollenberger Silos Corp. which believes it's the tallest on-farm silo ever built. "We decided to go with another tower silo instead of a bunker silo because we believe they're more efficient and faster to load," says Justin VanGilder, 17, who, along with his twin brother Jason, father David and mother Connie, and uncle Donald, comprise Dovan Farms. "To get the same capacity we would have had to build a bunker silo 150 ft. long by 50 ft. wide and we would have needed a 20,000-lb. tractor to pack it. You can only pack about 25 tons per hour, compared with blowing 60 tons per hour into an upright silo." The new silo is equipped with a 12 ft. high drive-thru alley for loading the feed truck. A Big Jim Quantum unloader fills trucks at the rate of 1,000 to 1,500 lbs. per minute. The foundation required 125 cu. yds. of concrete and the silo and drive-thru required about 350 cu. yds. It has over nine miles of rebar in it. The silo is loaded by a 150 hp Allis Chalmers 7040 powering a Gehl 1580 blower. The silo took Sollenberger Silos three weeks to build. Prior to that, the tallest farm silo the company ever built was 128 ft. high. Cost of the project, including Big Jim unloader, was $129,000. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dovan Farms, 582 Rocky Lane, Verlin, Pa. 15530 (ph 814 267-3184) or Sollenberger Silos Corp., 2294 Molly Pitcher Hwy., Chambersburg, Pa. 17201 (ph 717 262-2907).

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