The grain bushel converter above moves a quantity of grain between bushels, pounds, kilograms, metric tonnes, short tons and volume, using the standard bushel weight for the crop you select. It also applies an optional moisture adjustment, because a load delivered above the contract moisture is paid on the dry-equivalent quantity rather than on what came off the truck.
Arb Digital builds free calculators that state which convention they follow. This one takes crop bushel weights from a published USDA source and lets you overwrite them with a measured test weight. It states its boundary against the related tool here plainly: the grain bin capacity calculator starts from a store's dimensions and grain depth to work out how much a bin holds. This page starts from a quantity you already have and rescales it between units.
A Bushel Is a Weight, Not a Volume
This is the fact that causes most of the confusion. Historically a bushel was a volume — a heaped or struck measure of about 2,150 cubic inches — but the grain trade long ago fixed a standard weight per bushel for each crop and settled all business on that basis. A bushel of corn is 56 pounds; a bushel of wheat or soybeans is 60; a bushel of oats is 32. The same word therefore denotes a different mass for each commodity.
Those standard weights are documented by the US Department of Agriculture in Agriculture Handbook 697, Weights, Measures, and Conversion Factors for Agricultural Commodities and Their Products, which is the standard reference for converting between agricultural units. The tool uses those figures as its defaults and shows the one it is applying in an editable field.
Test weight is a separate idea again, easily confused with the standard bushel weight because it uses the same units. Test weight is the actual measured density of a specific load in pounds per volumetric bushel, and it is a grading factor: the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service's grain standards set minimum test weights among the criteria for each numerical grade. A low test weight can reduce the grade and the price, but it does not change how many pounds make a bushel for settlement.
How to Use It
- Enter the quantity and its unit. Weight, bushels and volume are all accepted, and the tool converts in whichever direction is needed.
- Pick the crop. That sets the pounds-per-bushel figure, which you can then overwrite with a measured value.
- Set the two moisture figures. The actual moisture of the load and the moisture your contract settles at.
- Read the adjusted bushels. That is the dry-equivalent quantity, which is what a moisture-adjusted contract pays on.
- Use the volume figure for storage, not for trade. Cubic feet answers how much space grain occupies; bushels answer what it is worth.
The Conversions, Worked Through
The chain is short. Pounds equal bushels multiplied by the crop's bushel weight. Kilograms equal pounds multiplied by 0.45359237, which is the exact legal definition of the pound. Metric tonnes are kilograms divided by 1,000, and short tons are pounds divided by 2,000. Volume uses the volumetric bushel of 2,150.42 cubic inches, which is 1.244456 cubic feet or 35.2391 litres.
The moisture adjustment is the shrink formula. Adjusted weight equals actual weight multiplied by (100 minus actual moisture) divided by (100 minus contract moisture). It works because the dry matter in the load is fixed; only the water changes, so removing water down to the contract level leaves a smaller settled weight.
Work the defaults. A thousand bushels of corn at 56 pounds per bushel is 56,000 pounds as delivered. At 18 per cent moisture against a 15.5 per cent standard, the adjustment is 56,000 × (100 − 18) ÷ (100 − 15.5), which is 56,000 × 82 ÷ 84.5, or 54,343.20 pounds. Divided by 56 that is 970.41 settlement bushels, so 29.59 bushels have been lost to moisture shrink. In metric terms the delivered load is 25,401 kilograms, or 25.40 tonnes.
Shrink Is Not the Same as Drying Charges
Moisture shrink accounts only for the water removed. It is arithmetic on the dry matter and it is what the formula above computes. Separately from it, most elevators apply a drying charge for the energy and handling involved, and many apply an additional handling shrink to cover the fines and dry matter physically lost during drying and transfer.
Those extra deductions are contractual rather than physical, they vary between buyers and seasons, and this tool deliberately applies none of them. If your settlement sheet shows a larger deduction than the shrink computed here, the difference is almost certainly a drying charge or a handling factor, and it should be itemised on the ticket.
The direction of the incentive matters too. Delivering grain wetter than the standard costs shrink and drying; delivering it drier costs you the water you could have legitimately sold, because most contracts do not pay a premium below the standard moisture. That asymmetry is why harvest moisture management is an economic decision rather than only an agronomic one, and why the crop yield calculator figures need a moisture basis stated alongside them.
Volume, Density and Why Bins Are Different
Converting bushels to space uses the volumetric bushel, and that is where storage planning begins. But the volume a load actually occupies depends on its bulk density, which depends on the grain's test weight, its moisture, its cleanliness and how it was filled. Grain that has been augered into a bin packs differently from grain that has been gently conveyed.
That is why a bin's rated capacity and a load's converted volume rarely agree exactly, and why the difference grows with bin height as the lower layers compress under the weight above. Packing factors of several per cent are ordinary in tall bins. For capacity from dimensions, the grain bin capacity calculator handles the geometry including the cone above the eave; this page does not attempt it.
The two tools answer opposite questions and it is worth being explicit about the boundary. Bin capacity asks how much fits in a known space. This converter asks what a known quantity is in other units. Neither substitutes for the other, and using a converted cubic-foot figure as a bin size ignores packing entirely.
Metric Grain Trade and the Tonne
Most of the world trades grain in metric tonnes, and bushels survive mainly in North American domestic markets. Converting between the two systems is where errors get expensive, because the conversion factor differs by crop: a metric tonne is about 39.37 bushels of corn but about 36.74 bushels of wheat or soybeans, since the bushel weight differs.
There is no single bushels-per-tonne number, and any spreadsheet that carries one is wrong for at least one commodity. The safe practice is to convert through weight in every case: bushels to pounds to kilograms to tonnes, with the crop's bushel weight applied explicitly at the first step. That is exactly what this tool does, and it reports the intermediate weights so the chain is visible.
Do watch which tonne is meant. A metric tonne is 1,000 kilograms, roughly 2,204.62 pounds; a short ton is 2,000 pounds; a long ton is 2,240. International contracts normally mean metric, US domestic ones frequently mean short, and the difference is about ten per cent. The weight converter handles those unit conversions in isolation, without any crop knowledge, which is exactly the boundary between it and this page. The volume converter does the same for the cubic measures.
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Browse All Free Tools Talk to Arb DigitalCommon Mistakes to Avoid
- Using one bushels-per-tonne figure for every crop — the bushel weight differs by commodity, so the conversion does too.
- Confusing test weight with the standard bushel weight — test weight is a measured grading factor, while the standard weight is what settles the trade.
- Mixing short tons and metric tonnes — they differ by about ten per cent, and international and domestic contracts often use different ones.
- Treating shrink as the whole deduction — drying charges and handling shrink are contractual extras that this calculation does not include.
- Using converted volume as bin capacity — packing under the weight of grain above reduces the space a given quantity occupies in a tall bin.
Related Free Tools From Arb Digital
For capacity from dimensions use the grain bin capacity calculator, and for yield figures the crop yield calculator. For pure unit conversion without any crop assumption, the weight converter, the volume converter and the density converter each do one job. For pricing work see the profit margin calculator and the percentage change calculator. The full free online tools hub lists everything.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the crop. USDA Agriculture Handbook 697 gives 56 pounds for corn, rye and grain sorghum, 60 for wheat and soybeans, 48 for barley, 45 for rough rice and 32 for oats. The bushel in the grain trade is a weight measure defined per commodity.
Both, historically, but the trade settles on weight. The volumetric bushel is 2,150.42 cubic inches, about 1.244 cubic feet or 35.24 litres, and it is used for storage. Business is done on the standard weight per bushel for the crop.
Test weight is the measured density of a particular load in pounds per volumetric bushel, and it is a grading factor with minimums set in the USDA grain standards. The standard bushel weight is the fixed figure used to convert weight to bushels for settlement, and it does not change with the load.
Adjusted weight equals actual weight times (100 minus actual moisture) divided by (100 minus contract moisture). The dry matter in the load is fixed, so removing water down to the contract level leaves a smaller settled weight and therefore fewer bushels.
Because shrink is only the water. Elevators typically add a drying charge for energy and handling, and many apply a further handling shrink for dry matter and fines lost in the process. Those are contractual terms that vary by buyer, and this tool applies none of them.
There is no single answer, because it depends on the crop's bushel weight. A metric tonne is about 39.4 bushels of corn and about 36.7 bushels of wheat or soybeans. Always convert through weight rather than using one factor for everything.
That tool starts from a bin's dimensions and a grain depth and works out how much it holds, including the cone above the eave. This one starts from a quantity you already have and rescales it between bushels, weight units and volume. One measures a space, the other converts a number.
This tool is provided for educational and estimating use. Settlement quantities, grades, moisture standards, shrink and drying charges are set by your contract and by the buyer's official weights and grades, and those documents govern any transaction.
