The facility includes an educational building with a classroom, an analytical lab, a warehouse and a pilot feed mill; a 100-foot concrete mill tower; a 40-foot concrete pelleting plant; and 200,000 bushels of grain storage. 

The complex is located on 10 acres of university-owned land in Ames, Iowa, US, that had been the site of crop research, seed operations and crop yield performance trials for more than 50 years.

A 30-year industry veteran, Anthony Ewing, right, is associate director and operations manager for the facility, and Dirk Maier, left, is director of the complex and professor of grain and feed operations and processing at Iowa State University.

Each bin has a capacity of about 45,000 bushels, with two different aeration systems so comparisons can be made for research purposes.

In addition to the four storage bins, the facility has one (bottom left) 20,000-bushel bin set up as an in-bin drying system and two 10,000-bushel wet holding bins (middle right).

The mixed flow dryer was donated by Sukup, based in Sheffield, Iowa, US.

The facility has a central vacuum system that was donated by Walinga.

The 10-tph hammermill was donated by CPM, based in Waterloo, Iowa, US. 

CPM also donated the three-high roller mill, which has a capacity of 10 tph. 

CPM, which acquired Bliss Industries in 2021, donated a high-efficiency pellet cooler to the facility. 

The feed mill has parallel conditioning systems including a conditioner with a retentioner that can hold feed at temperature for a longer time and bypass the pellet mill to produce heat treated mash.

Monitoring systems, donated by AGI SureTrack, are installed throughout the facility.