Journal or Book Title
Transactions of the ASAE
The four electronic moisture meters most commonly used by Iowa grain dealers were compared with the official United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) air-oven method on 881 samples of corn from the 1979 and 1980 harvests. Samples ranged in moisture from 11% to 38%, wet basis. With the manufacturer-developed calibrations used in 1979, all four brands gave biased readings with respect to the air-oven method. Calibration bias errors differed among brands and ranged from approximately 1.5% to -3.5% moisture content. A recalibration between the 1979 and 1980 harvests reduced both this bias and the discrepancy among meter brands. Random errors originated from three sources: the electrical properties of different samples (contributing about 85% of the total random error), the repeatability of a meter test on a specific sample (contributing about 10%, and the repeatability of the oven method on a specific sample (contributing about 5%. The coefficient of variation of a meter test with respect to the oven varied with moisture content and increased from a minimum of 2.5% to 15.5% moisture corn to a maximum of 4.5% at both 11% and 38% moisture corn.
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
Hurburgh, Charles R. Jr.; Hazen, T. E.; and Bern, Carl J., "Corn Moisture Measurement Accuracy" (1985). Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications. 402.