How is moisture shrink calculated?

Removing water reduces weight, so dry bushels equal wet bushels times (100 minus wet moisture) divided by (100 minus target moisture). The moisture shrink percent is the weight lost expressed as a fraction of the original. Drying 25 percent corn to 15 percent removes about 11.8 percent of the weight as water.

What is the difference between moisture shrink and total shrink?

Moisture shrink is the actual water removed by the formula above. Many elevators add a handling shrink, often around 0.5 percent, to cover dry-matter loss and dust during drying and handling. Total shrink is the sum of both and is what reduces your paid bushels.

What is a point of moisture?

A point is one percentage of moisture. Drying corn from 22 to 15 percent is seven points. Drying charges are commonly quoted per point per bushel, for example 4 cents per point, so seven points costs 28 cents per bushel of grain dried.

When does it pay to sell wet instead of drying?

Compare the net value after shrink and drying cost to the buyer's wet price after their shrink and drying deduction. If the elevator's drying charge plus shrink is cheaper than your on-farm cost, selling wet can win. This tool gives the dry-side figures to put in that comparison.

Does this include fuel and electricity separately?

No. The per-point drying cost you enter is meant to bundle fuel, power, and handling into a single rate, which is how most on-farm and elevator charges are expressed. If you want to model fuel alone, enter just the fuel component as the per-point cost.

What is the Grain Shrink & Drying Cost Calculator?

Use the standard shrink formula to find the weight lost when drying grain from field moisture to a target moisture, then apply a per-point drying cost to get total drying expense and net dry bushels. Built for producers evaluating sell-wet decisions. Runs in your browser. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Grain Shrink & Drying Cost Calculator

Name: Grain Shrink & Drying Cost Calculator
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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At harvest, deciding whether to dry grain on farm or sell it wet hinges on two numbers: how much weight you lose to shrink and what drying costs. This calculator applies the standard shrink formula to convert wet bushels to dry bushels and multiplies the points removed by your drying rate to give the total cost.

How it works

Drying removes water, so the dry bushels are scaled by the ratio of solids:

dry bushels       = wet bushels × (100 − wet moisture) / (100 − target moisture)
moisture shrink % = (wet bushels − dry bushels) / wet bushels × 100
total shrink %    = moisture shrink % + handling shrink %
paid bushels      = wet bushels × (1 − total shrink % / 100)
points removed    = wet moisture − target moisture
drying cost       = wet bushels × points removed × cost per point

The points-removed figure drives the drying cost, while the shrink ratio drives how many sellable bushels remain after the water leaves.

Worked example — 1,000 bu corn at 22% moisture

Goal: dry to the corn standard of 15% moisture.

Dry bushels = 1,000 × (100 − 22) / (100 − 15) = 1,000 × 78 / 85 = 917.6 bu
Moisture shrink = (1,000 − 917.6) / 1,000 × 100 = 8.24%
Add 0.5% handling shrink: total shrink = 8.74%, leaving about 912.6 paid bushels
Points removed = 22 − 15 = 7 points
Drying cost at $0.04 per point per bushel = 1,000 × 7 × 0.04 = $280.00

So from 1,000 wet bushels you net roughly 913 paid bushels after handling, and you spend $280 to get there. Whether that is better or worse than selling wet depends on the elevator’s wet-corn bid and the shrink deduction they apply.

Sell wet vs dry on farm — the comparison framework

The decision is never just about your drying cost. A complete comparison requires:

Your net on drying: paid bushels × dry price, minus total drying cost
Elevator’s wet price: wet bushels × wet bid, after their shrink and drying deduction

Elevators buying wet corn apply their own shrink factor and drying charge. Obtain their published wet-price schedule, compute what they would net you on the same 1,000 bushels, and compare the two net figures. This calculator gives you side 1 of that comparison — your on-farm or commercial-dryer net — so you can put it against side 2 on the same page.

Moisture points and what they cost

Each percentage point of moisture removed requires energy. For corn:

Natural-air drying (bin fans) costs less per point but only works when ambient conditions allow and is slower
High-temperature continuous-flow dryers are faster but typically cost more per point
Elevator drying charges vary by season, local demand, and natural gas prices

The “cost per point per bushel” field in this tool is designed for the fully-loaded rate — whatever you pay per point, including fuel and electricity, expressed per wet bushel. If your dryer runs at $0.035 per point and natural gas spikes, updating that figure immediately shows the impact on the decision.

Handling shrink

Many elevators and farm operations apply a handling shrink of around 0.3 to 1.0 percent on top of the moisture shrink to cover dust loss, dry-matter respiration, and cleaning. This is contractual, not a physical law — always check your elevator’s basis sheet for the exact rate. The calculator lets you enter it separately from moisture shrink so you can clearly see both components.