Corn Breakage in Overseas Shipments—Two Case Studies

ABSTRACT IDENTITY preserved shipments of grain from Toledo, Ohio, to Rotterdam, Holland and from Peoria, Illinois, to Mexico were extensively sampled from point to point throughout the market channel. Determinations of broken corn and foreign material (BCFM), particle size distributions, percent whole kernels, test weight, moisture content, breakage tests, and limited stress crack analyses were performed on the corn samples. In the Toledo-Rotterdam shipment, average BCFM increased from 3.6 percent to 15 percent. Breakage tester results were in the 18 to 26 percent range. In the Peoria-Mexico ship-ment, average BCFM increased from 1.2 percent to approximately 5.3 percent. Breakage tester results were in the 3 to 10 percent range. High percentages of initial multiple stress cracks associated with high break-age tester results were often indicative of corn with high percentages of BCFM generated through repeated handling.