Seed Processing at EQS
The first seed processing equipment was small and required all manual labour. When Abe graduated with his Ag Diploma in 1957, he built a seed plant with an overhead bin in a wooden granary, a small clipper screen machine and some sizer rollers with a capacity of about 20 bushels per hour. It was an improvement from shovelling grain into the cleaner and bagging the clean seed as it came out.
In 1977 Abram built a more modern plant with capacity for about 80-100 bushels per hour with hopper bins for receiving seed and cleaned seed which operated until the mid 90’s.
With Dry beans becoming a large part of crop production in the mid 90’s, the farm built an exclusive bean cleaning facility to handle the processing of Pinto, Navy, Black and Kidney beans. With the advent of bean production in the Pembina Valley, sophisticated equipment was needed, and the first colour sorter was purchased in 2003. Jake and Chris pioneered dry bean production and processing on the farm and learned how to handle and process the fragile seeds with little to no damage.
The Soybean Rush
Developing the seed processing plant for maximum gentleness was a huge advantage when a few years later the Soybean industry exploded in Southern Manitoba. Jake and Chris were able to capitalize on the opportunity to process and market Soybean seed. Seed retailers would specifically request that their soybean seed come from Ens Quality Seed.
Always looking to improve on production, Jake and Chris were one of the first in Manitoba to install rotary spiral cleaners in the soybean cleaning line. This dramatically reduced dockage when cleaning soybeans (which were not perfectly round) and greatly improved the finished product with less cleanout.
In 2012, a new cleaning facility was built to handle the ever increasing workload. Again, attention to detail of the gentlest possible handling was key in designing the new seed plant. Along with gentle handling, air quality and dust control in the plant was another integral part in improving the finished seed product, as well as the working conditions inside the building.
Maintaining and improving seed integrity is paramount in every aspect of the seed processing operation both mechanically and in personal attention to every detail by the whole team at Ens Quality Seed.