Course 02 of 20 · Agricultural Commodities Desk Academy

Grades, Moisture, Weights & Quantities

Stage A, Crop, grade and price fundamentals. Level 1 of 10.

The physical measurement and grading system: official grade factors, moisture and shrink, test weight, foreign material, and conversion between weight, volume and bushel units.

121 chapters · 11 modules · every chapter one 8 to 10 minute explainer · builds on: Course 01

Enrol or enquire See the 121 chapters
How a chapter is delivered

One chapter is one idea taken to the point of use

Each chapter covers one idea to the point where you can use it, and comes two ways: a narrated explainer, and a deep dive audio discussion of around thirty minutes that works the same material at depth.

Self-paced throughout, and the same chapters can be taught as a cohort. Chapters run in order: each one assumes only what the chapters before it taught, and capability belonging to a later course is named and deferred rather than half-covered.

Curriculum

11 modules · 121 chapters

Open any module for its full chapter list, in teaching order.

M0 The Load, the Bench and the Figure That Gets Paid Ch 1-10
  1. A Truckload Is Not a Payable Quantity Until It Is Measured
  2. Three Numbers Behind Every Grain Settlement
  3. Why One Parcel Has Several Honest Quantities
  4. The Instruments on a Grain Grading Bench
  5. An Instrument Reading Is Not an Opinion
  6. Whose Bench Produces the Governing Reading
  7. The Working Vocabulary of a Receiving Pit
  8. Grade Limits Are Published by Someone, and They Change
  9. Two Scales, Two Net Figures, One Parcel
  10. The Order Measurement Actually Happens In
M1 The Portion the Instrument Reads Ch 11-20
  1. Grading a Thousand Tonnes From a Few Hundred Grams
  2. Probing a Truck or Rail Car by Hand
  3. Cross-Cut Samplers on a Moving Grain Stream
  4. Drawing From a Barge Hold or a Flat Store
  5. Reducing a Bulk Sample With a Riffle Divider
  6. The Work Portion, the File Portion and the One Sent Away
  7. How Many Probes Are Worth Taking
  8. ISO 24333 and the Sampling Plan a Contract Names
  9. What Happens to a Portion Between Probe and Bench
  10. A Sampling Record Someone Else Can Repeat
M2 Weighing the Load Ch 21-31
  1. Gross, Tare and Net on a Grain Weighbridge
  2. The Certified Weighbridge and Who Certifies It
  3. Calibration, Standard Weights and Scale Drift
  4. Weighing a Vehicle That Does Not Fit the Platform
  5. Rail Car Weights and the Railway's Own Scale
  6. Weighing Grain in Motion on a Belt or Hopper Scale
  7. Draught Survey Against Shore Scale on a Bulk Ship
  8. The Grain Left in the Trailer After Tipping
  9. Weight at Receipt Against Weight at Load Out
  10. Rounding a Net Weight and the Unit It Is Booked In
  11. One Load From Weighbridge Ticket to Recorded Net Weight
M3 Bushels, Tonnes and the Conversion That Must Not Invert Ch 32-43
  1. The Bushel as a Weight Convention Wearing a Volume Name
  2. Pounds Per Bushel: the Factor That Turns Weight Into Units
  3. Dividing Pounds Into Bushels and Multiplying Back
  4. Kilograms, Metric Tonnes and the Pound Defined Exactly
  5. Tonnes to Bushels, Commodity by Commodity
  6. The Hundredweight, the Quintal and the Local Unit
  7. Hectolitre Mass and Why Europe Does Not Count Bushels
  8. Writing the Unit at Every Step of a Conversion
  9. An Inverted Factor Survives Every Calculation After It
  10. A Price Quoted Per Bushel and a Freight Charged Per Tonne
  11. Measuring the Volume of a Heap and a Bin
  12. One Parcel Expressed in Four Units Without Changing Its Mass
M4 Measuring Moisture Ch 44-54
  1. What a Moisture Percentage Divides By
  2. Wet Basis and Dry Basis for a Cereal Grain
  3. The Oven Reference Method and ISO 712
  4. Capacitance and Resistance Meters on the Bench
  5. Calibrating a Meter Against the Oven
  6. Hot Grain and the Meter That Reads It Wrong
  7. The Moisture Gradient Inside a Freshly Dried Kernel
  8. Two Honest Meters, Two Readings, One Load
  9. Whole Grain Against a Ground Portion
  10. Equilibrium Moisture and the Air Around the Grain
  11. A Moisture Result Recorded So It Can Be Reproduced
M5 Shrink: Water Removed and Units Lost Ch 55-66
  1. Dry Matter Is Conserved and Water Is Not
  2. A Wet Load Delivered Against a Dry Standard Pays Fewer Units
  3. The Moisture Shrink Identity, Derived From Dry Matter
  4. Working Moisture Shrink Forwards and Backwards
  5. The Published Shrink Table and the Derived Factor
  6. Handling Shrink Is Not Moisture Shrink
  7. Invisible Shrink and the Inventory That Will Not Reconcile
  8. A Combined Shrink Factor and What It Conceals
  9. A Weight Deduction and a Price Discount Are Different Adjustments
  10. A Drying Charge Is Not a Shrink Factor
  11. Adding Water Back and What It Does Not Restore
  12. One Wet Maize Load Taken From Gross Weight to Payable Bushels
M6 Test Weight and Bulk Density Ch 67-76
  1. What the Test Weight Apparatus Actually Measures
  2. Filling the Kettle: the Procedure That Decides the Reading
  3. ISO 7971 and the Hectolitre Mass Determination
  4. Pounds Per Bushel Test Weight Against Kilograms Per Hectolitre
  5. A Light Kernel and a Loose Pack Read the Same
  6. Why Drying a Parcel Moves Its Test Weight
  7. Test Weight as a Grade Factor and as a Hint About Yield
  8. Kernel Density Measured Apart From Bulk Density
  9. Thousand Kernel Weight and the Count Behind It
  10. Reading a Bulk Density Result Against the Moisture Beside It
M7 Damage, Foreign Material and Dockage Ch 77-89
  1. What a Grade Factor Is and What It Is Not
  2. Dockage and Foreign Material Are Separate Measurements
  3. The Dockage Tester and Its Sieve and Riddle Set
  4. ISO 5223 and the Test Sieves a Cereal Analysis Uses
  5. Broken Kernels and the Screen That Defines Them
  6. Damaged Kernels: Counting Against Weighing
  7. Heat Damage and the Kernel That Records a Bad Dry
  8. Frost, Sprout and Field Damage in the Standing Crop
  9. Total Damage as a Sum of Separately Counted Categories
  10. Shrunken and Shrivelled Kernels and the Thin Screening
  11. Cleaning a Load to Grade and the Weight It Costs
  12. Protein Measured by Near-Infrared Instrument
  13. Falling Number and the Enzyme Activity It Reports
M8 Condition, Infestation and the Special Grades Ch 90-99
  1. Odour: the One Factor Still Judged by Nose
  2. Live Insects Found in a Probe Sample
  3. Insect Damaged Kernels Counted After the Insects Have Gone
  4. Heating Grain and the Load That Cannot Wait
  5. Mould, Musty Grain and Visible Fungal Growth
  6. Mycotoxin Screening and the Maximum Levels Someone Published
  7. Treated Seed and Chemical Residue in a Food Load
  8. Stones, Glass, Metal and Other Contraries
  9. Special Grades That Travel Beside a Numerical Grade
  10. Measuring Genetically Modified Content in an Identity Preserved Load
M9 Official Inspection and the Grade Certificate Ch 100-110
  1. Why Governments Wrote Grain Standards At All
  2. The United States Grain Standards Act and Official Inspection
  3. The Canadian Grain Commission and the Official Grain Grading Guide
  4. European Union Cereal Criteria and the Member State Laboratory
  5. Brazilian and Argentine Classification Rules
  6. Grain Trade Australia Standards and the Receival Standard
  7. Indian Agmark Grades and the Statutory Grading Route
  8. A Licensed Inspector, a Private Laboratory and the Buyer's Own Bench
  9. What a Grade Certificate States and What It Omits
  10. Asking for a Reinspection Before the Load Moves On
  11. Reading a Foreign Grade Name Back Into Physical Facts
M10 Worked Parcels and the Limits of Measurement Ch 111-121
  1. A Wheat Load at a Country Elevator, Part One: Draw and Scale
  2. A Wheat Load at a Country Elevator, Part Two: Factors, Shrink and Payable Tonnes
  3. A Soybean Cargo Measured at Origin and Again at Destination
  4. A Maize Load That Grades Well and Weighs Light
  5. A Load That Meets Every Limit and Still Will Not Keep
  6. Blending Two Loads and the Factor That Does Not Average
  7. The Measurement Sheet a Counterparty Can Rebuild
  8. What an Instrument Reading Cannot Tell You About a Crop
  9. Measurement Error and the Band Around a Factor
  10. One Grower's Loads Measured Across a Harvest
  11. When the Grade Becomes a Discount and the Shrink Becomes a Cost

The brochure gives each of these 121 chapters a paragraph on what it covers and what you can do once you have worked through it.

This is course 2 of twenty

It stands alone, and it is also the entry point to the Agricultural Commodities Desk Academy pathway.

Enrol or enquire See the whole pathway