b"Left: The 1987 built Mountain View Seed Cleaning Plant in Carstairs, Alta. facility before recent upgrades. Right:The 1987 built Mountain View Seed Cleaning Plant in Carstairs, Alta. facility following recent upgrades. PHOTOS: MOUNTAIN VIEW SEED CLEANING PLANTWierenga, along with some seasonal employees. As Truesdale tookresearch and pedigree seed. Truesdale explains. This will take time over running the plant, he looked at annual operations and knewas it needs to be set up and a customer base built for it.there were ways they could increase capacity and keep the plant busyThe renovations werent easy though as the team embarked on year round, not just for six months in the winter following harvest. them in 2020 as the global COVID-19 pandemic started to unfold. (Truesdale) knew all the machines and and he just said, Well, weThe pandemic caused supply chain constraints and fluctuating can increase our capacity, Hildebrandt says. You got four or fiveprices which impacted construction. months where (the plant) kind of sits idlethey do maintenanceCOVID came in and kind of slowed things down and inflated and stuff. But we he said, Well, we could do other cleaning,prices astronomically very quickly. So it was a challenge that way on Canada Maltings always looking for grain to be cleaned. Andthe financing side, because we'd have a quote, and they'd say, Well, there's other things that that can be cleaned, other businesses. this quotes good for seven days. Well, seven days is not a long time, The Mountain View Seed Cleaning board could see theHildebrandt says, adding the board needed to meet and sign off on opportunity in Truesdales vision and gave him the go ahead toeverything which was hard to do on such short timelines. start on the project. An engineer was hired to complete a feasibilityThe upgrades also required a new electrical room to be built at study of the plant and identify areas where upgrades or expansionsthe plant as the old one couldnt handle the capacity of the new could be made. The decision was made to upgrade the cleaning andtechnology being installed. The electrician they worked with told treating systems, add a second scale and receiving system, and buildthem usually it would take eight to 10 weeks for the parts required 10 additional storage bins. to come in but due to the pandemic, delivery was delayed in some We renovated the plant, moved around cleaners to improve thecases nine months. flow,addedan additional scale, outside storage bins and a newOriginally they had planned for construction to be completed unload system. So we had a complete overhaul in the last couple ofand have the plant upgrades up and running by the start of the years, Truesdale says. 2022-23 grain cleaning season in October. With the delays though, With the upgrades the plant now has doubled its receiving,the plant upgrades werent fully operational until January 2023. cleaning and screening capacity using two truck scales for loadingOnce everything got started we were able to work the bugs out and unloading. The interior 80 foot scale unloads 2,000 bushelseasily. The supply chain delays just cost us a few months and then per hour, while the exterior 100 foot scale unload 10,000 bushelswe're playing catch up with our cleaning through the season, per hour. There was also two all-in-one cleaners added includingTruesdale explains.on which allows for 250 bushels of seed to be cleaned per hour andBefore the upgrades Mountain View Seed Cleaning Plant was a small lab scale that cleans 10 bushels per hourthese upgradscleaning around 500,000 bushels of grain annually. Its estimated provide the plant with two more options for commercial cleaning.theyll be able to clean around 1,000,000 bushels per year now. Future plans will see upgrades to both cleaning lines, increasingTruesdale is excited for the 2023-24 grain cleaning season as it will cleaning capacity to a combined 1,600 bushels of grain per hour. be the first one with the upgraded plant fully operational for the The hope is that with the small lab scale cleaner we can testfull year. samples, conduct training, or clean small, high value, lots for Ashley Robinson44seed.ab.ca"