Many a times we have stored our corn using different storage methods just to prevent insect infestation during storage. Farm work doesn't just stop with harvesting, it goes further to what storage methods we can use to preserve our crops to keep them healthy as food as the year passes.
Sometimes we store harvested corns in airtight drums, it is believed that once there is no air that insects cannot grow or multiple within the corn to damage the corn.
That has failed us a few times.
Next we began to add hot chilli pepper to dry the grains, our local farmers believe that the hotness of the chilli can will stop any insect infestation.
That too didn't work out perfectly. In the latest development we were taught about how to use Agric engineered bags to store our grains. This was what we actually used the previous year. Even though we got the bags we actually had to use some tablet insecticides to complement the bags. We have never tried using the sacs alone to see if it will be effective in keeping away insecticides.
Using chemicals to store grains is not advisable, the chemicals must not come in contact with our foods. And sometimes strong odours from the chemicals is harmful. We are completely looking for a way to take a way to eliminate the chemicals.
First we sundry the corns properly to keep away moisture.
Sun-drying also kills insect pods that may hatch later to attack stored grains. We have been Sun-drying the grains for couple of days now, after which they will be stored.
Another way to store corn is to blend them into powder but I'm not sure if the powdered form can last for months without losing its taste.
There are times we have blended corn flour and before they could stay for long they they started giving some bad taste.
In essence this is us looking for the perfect way to store our corn grains to keep them healthy for consumption and away from all the contemporary harmful storage chemicals we see around. It's a bad idea to store your grains with harmful substances, they will definitely keep away the insects but will pose some serious health threat,hence we must beware of what we use to store our grains.
