NCI Hosts Understanding Feed Manufacturing for Graduate Students Course | July 24-26, 2024
NCI Feemill Manager Shane Mueller explaining NCI’s feedmill automation system.
The Northern Crops Institute (NCI) hosted its Understanding Feed Manufacturing for Graduate Students course on July 24-26, 2024. With the high demand for graduate programs like animal nutrition or ag engineering, the NCI recognized the need for these students to have direct access to or experience in a feed mill. Therefore, this course was created to provide a three-day workshop as a service to those students and our partner universities. This course is held every other year in-person at the Northern Crops Institute Feed Production Center. This year’s group involved 14 participants from North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, and the University of Minnesota.
Mixing feed from the control room.
The course aimed to provide participants with a better understanding of the feed milling industry, milling processes, and feed quality and safety standards. The students engaged in a comprehensive overview of feed manufacturing considerations from ingredient selection to finished product. This workshop served as a supplemental experience to classroom learning, containing both the classroom setting and working hands-on with feed processing equipment at the NCI Feedmill.
Hands-on experience with a sample.
The students arrived on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. The course kicked off with a tour of the facility and presentations on food safety, feed mill design, feed mill automation, and in-line NIR technology. The afternoon introduced the group to extrusion processing. Discussion topics included high shear dry extrusion and field studies of extruded products. The group participated in a hands-on live demonstration of the NCI’s Insta-Pro extruder with Feedmill Manager Shane Mueller.
Some feed samples to demonstrate how different settings and parameters affect final product.
“It’s one thing to learn through lectures and presentations, but when they can physically see, hear, and feel the whole process, it adds that level of connection that the classroom alone cannot do,” said Mueller.
Day two began back in the classroom for presentations on stored ingredients and the roller grinder equipment. The group then did some hands-on corn grinding on the roller grinder and particle size analysis testing in the labs. The next step of this experience was comparing characteristics between the ground product on the roller grinder versus that on the hammermill. The group ran multiple additional batches of corn on the hammermill with multiple settings to evaluate for particle size analysis. Some key discussion points along the way included recognizing where potential production errors may occur.
Demonstration on the NCI pellet mill.
The last day of the course started out all about mixers. From mixer types to mixer operation to mixer design, the student had many factors to compare. The the group applied their knowledge in mixing batches of feed on the NCI feedmill mixer and walking through a Quantab test. They enjoyed experiencing NCI’s automation configuration for mixing feed. Lastly, the 2024 course concluded with a discussion and live demonstration on pelleting with NCI’s pellet mill. Pelleting discussion also included operations, design, and pellet durability testing.
A certificate of completion was awarded to all the attendees who participated in this course. NCI extends a thank you to all participants, speakers, and demo operators. This course was free for the students to attend, and NCI hopes to run it again in 2026 for the next wave of young future feedmilling professionals.