Sunday, May 26, 2019

Maize, KS: Alfalfa Pellet Plant

(see below for satellite)

Bob Summers posted
Until the 1970's alfalfa dehy plants were dehydrating and pelletizing alfalfa to ship like grain to dairys and feeders across the country. This is what is left of the Bert & Wetta facility just west of Maize Kansas on the former Missouri Pacific railroad.
Marc Mcclure A lot of them across Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Oklahoma at one time.Bob Summers Yes. As a grain trader we did not trade alfalfa pellets but would see their markets in the Grain & Feed Journal regularly.David Budka Back in the 1990s there was still an operating alfalfa dehydrator in Fremont, Nebraska south of East Jackson Street, and west of Union Street. It is gone now.Michael R Morris I remember the aroma of alfalfa mills along US-30 in Nebraska in the 1960s when I was a kid on vacation.
Decades later in the Detroit suburbs I was perplexed as to why many of my friends would return from parties having done nothing but dehydrate alfalfa.
I was so naive.John Harker There was one in Lake Park Iowa. For a long time. A peculiar aroma that I kinda rediscovered in later years. 
One still in operation in Priam Minnesota just outside of Wilmar Minnesota.Dennis DeBruler So what stopped this market? Switching from hay to corn because of deep-well "circle" irrigation?Bob Summers Probably energy costs to dehydrate (the '70's were the days of the OPEC embargo and natural gas was being rationed) and railroads began favoring large multi car shipments in their tariffs. Still a lot of alfalfa used as need ruffage in the feed rations, but is now mostly chopped and trucked to feeders in the region.

3D Satellite


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