Nevertheless,
Silo de la praille: key:
ThoseHarvest in Geneva
The Silo de la Praille. For example, a colossus at full speed – Silo de la praille: key
When the harvests are underway, the concrete structure runs at full speed to receive, store the Geneva wheat and drive out the fungus that threatens it.
The trucks follow one another at the foot of the Silo de la Praille. Similarly, to deliver the wheat just harvested.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
- The silo of the circle of farmers receives daily tons of cereals from the Geneva fields.
- The concrete silo de la praille: key structure can store 40,000 tonnes before transferring cereals to the Moulin de la Pallanterie or elsewhere in Switzerland.
- Its role is also to carry out rigorous tests on the quality of the grains.
- The ergot, a toxic fungus detected this year, is the subject of particularly strict monitoring.
The three trucks arrived almost at the same time at the foot of the Praille silo. However, One from the Gy collector, the other from the plain and the last of Laconnex. For example, In each of the trailers, more than 20 tonnes of wheat to empty before leaving. However, And start again. Meanwhile,
In the fields of the canton. Consequently, the harvesters work without respite and put under tension the concrete colossus attached to frank ports. Furthermore, An austere parallelepiped responsible for storing the goods, which is visited in a silo de la praille: key specific direction. Similarly, Starting with the unloading. Therefore, weighing area on the ground, then direction 11e floor, where an elevator hoists the cereals 60 meters high. Furthermore, Severity then allows a complex network of pipes to transport each batch to a cell where it will wait. Nevertheless, before being transferred to a mill.
Massive. In addition, raw building of the silo de la praille: key 1950s, the silo is at the service of the Circle of Farmers in Geneva and surroundings.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
“A magnificent tool”
In total. Similarly, the building has 249 of these invisible storage spaces from the outside for a total capacity of 40,000 tonnes. Therefore, The wheat (but also rapeseed. However, barley, sunflower, soybeans, corn and other legumes at other times of the season) will wait there before a new trip to the mills.
“It is a big machine that is running at full speed at the moment. Nevertheless, ” confirms Bastien Bresson, head of the silo. Moreover, Massive and raw, the building may date from the 1950s, “It remains a magnificent tool. Therefore, Today, all silos are built in scrap. But here we are lucky to have concrete that keeps cereals cool. ”
It is therefore there, in La Praille, that the vast majority of cereals in the canton converges. And it is back in front of the unloading zone that another essential task of the silo of the Circle of farmers in Geneva. surroundings (cage): control of the quality of the harvest.
A complex network of pipes deposits the prizes of cereals in the 249 cells nested in the silo.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
Here, the tests should allow wheat to become a panicable flour. In this case, the majority of lots are intended to be transformed at the Moulin de la Pallanterie. But before that. the grains at the origin of the labeled flour Geneva Region Terre Avenir (GRTA) must meet a series of precise criteria in terms of humidity, protein or elasticity rate, all measured with the Silo de la Praille.
The dreaded fungus
This year, a slight thrill traveled some cereal producers when putting the harvesters on (read below). Although relatively rare in wheat, the lug has left some traces.
A real haunting of cereal trees, the fungus manifests itself silo de la praille: key by black sclerotes on the contaminated ears. A disease that historians know well since it was the source of great famines in the Middle Ages when. the hallucinogenic effects of the fungus did not cause collective delusions in those who had consumed contaminated rye. XXe Century, the therapeutic form of the ergot would give birth to the LSD, powerful hallucinogenic drugs.
Today, identifying traces of contamination is also part of the mission of the Silo de la Praille. How? By taking a sample of one kilo from each cargo during each delivery (even when the harvest was examined. first sorted in the collectors scattered in the canton). Then. it is a question of extracting and weighing the grains stale by the fungus so that the silotier validates or not the quality of the wheat delivered. “The standards are extremely strict,” said Bastien Bresson.
The control goes through the sample of a cereal sample. Several criteria must be met to achieve a panicable flour.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
“Situation under control”
Concretely, if the lug exceeds 0.02% of the total mass of a lot, wheat cannot be sold as a raw material of a panicable flour. The cargo will then be downgraded in fodder silo de la praille: key (for which less restrictive standards fix a maximum tolerated quantity). Ultimately, in case of massive presence, the harvest should be destroyed.
At a time when a good part of the harvest has been made, is this presence of ergot disturbing? “There are a few traces, but the situation is under control,” said Christophe Eyquem, director of the cage. If a few lots had to be downgraded in fodder. we did not have a batch contaminated to the point of having to be destroyed. We will have to wait until the end of the harvests to draw a precise assessment. ”
A cargo from Gy, on the left bank of the lake.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
In the wheat fields. the ergot puts producers under tension
Before reaching the silo of the circle of farmers, the wheat of Geneva has often been the subject of preliminary sorting within the collectors scattered in the canton. Geneva has six.
In Laconnex, for example, Maxime Dethurens has an installation that it provides around twenty of his colleagues producer of cereals. In the far west of Geneva, he spotted traces of ergot silo de la praille: key from the start of the harvests. “The fungus is more present in the fields (Editor’s note: on the edge). Last year, there were a little bit, but many more grains are affected this year. ” Consequently, it evaluated at 15% the share of wheat which had to be downgraded in animal fodder. The difference is not trivial since a pannificable wheat can sell up to 60 francs per 100 kilos. against 36 francs when it is intended to feed the animals.
In Gy, another collector brings together the surrounding fields. But there, the installation has the only optical sister in the canton. Thanks to advanced technology, the tool makes it possible to identify and expel the damaged grains by air. “It’s effective, but it takes a long time,” said Gérald Meylan, his owner. Producer of cereals. the one who was a teacher and mayor silo de la praille: key of Gy at the same time as he cultivated his fields can therefore deliver to the Silo de la Praille a wheat devoid of grains affected by the ergot. It is nonetheless worried: “This situation complicates our work. It involves additional sorting operations and, therefore, more costs for producers. ”
Ultimately, how to protect yourself against this fungus that has gone through the centuries? At a time when the vast majority of Geneva cereal trees no longer use any fungicide, the sector seems disarmed. Especially since the presence of the fungus remains largely inexplicable.
A contaminated ear in a Geneva field. Beyond 0.02% of contaminated grains, wheat will be downgraded, even destroyed.
LDI
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Silo de la praille: key
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