02/04/08 Propane Manual

Propane Manual. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. We have all had to make a trip to the gas station toting a 5 gallon can to refuel a car or lawn mower. We really don't think much about it other than trying not to spill it. Even when refueling your farm machinery with gas or diesel it's pretty straight forward. But when it comes to propane it seems a lot of users are unsure of its handling. According to Mark Leitman, Director of Agriculture Programs for the Propane Education and Research Council they have recently developed a new manual. LEITMAN: We just released a manual we call "Dispensing Propane Safely into Ag Equipment." We developed it because we recognized a need actually a couple of years ago from people that use propane equipment that's mobile. Talking to farmers through some of the research we did we found out that people are a little uncomfortable with transferring propane. They're not as comfortable as they are with gasoline and diesel for example. Propane is finding a lot more uses in agriculture these days and so Leitman says it was important to get the information into the users hands. LEITMAN: We developed this manual to help educate people on the proper steps that they would need to go through if they have a piece of propane mobile on their farm. A couple of reason why we did that  there are uses today like flame weed control units, carts that refuel irrigation equipment, of course tractors and trucks but we're also developing new uses like the poultry house sanitizer you've heard us talk about and some other technology that's a little proprietary at this time so we wanted to get this out there. Propane is considerably different from either gasoline or diesel. LEITMAN: The biggest difference is it's in a pressure tight vessel. I mean you are dealing with a gas that vaporizes and actually boils at -44 degrees Fahrenheit so obviously at atmospheric pressure it's a gas so you have to have tight connections otherwise the gas will leak and disperse. Ag propane users are urged to get a copy of the manual to become as educated about its handling as possible. LEITMAN: Contact their propane retailer and it's a resource that's available from PERC, the Propane Education and Research Council. All propane dealers should know how to contact us but it's in our resource catalog or by calling the PERC office directly. The cost of the product is approximately $11. For more information visit the PERC website at agpropane.com. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.