Bushel
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- This article is about the unit of measurement. For the surname and other uses, see: Bushell
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A bushel is a unit of dry volume, usually subdivided into eight local gallons in the systems of Imperial units and U.S. customary units. It is used for volumes of dry commodities, not liquids, most often in agriculture. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. The name derives from the 14th century buschel or busschel, a box.[1]
- 1 U.S. bushel = 8 corn/dry gallons = 2150.42 cu in = 35.23907016688 litres ≈ 9.309177 wine/liquid gallons. The original definition was the volume of a cylinder 18.5 inches in diameter and 8 inches high, which gives an irrational number of cubic inches or litres, but later this bushel was redefined as 2150.42 cubic inches, about 1 part per million less.
- 1 Imperial bushel = 36.36872 litres = 8 Imperial gallons ≈ 2219.35546 cu. in.
- 1 bushel = 4 pecks
Bushels are now most often used as units of mass or weight rather than of volume. The bushels in which grains are bought and sold on commodity markets or at local grain elevators, and for reports of grain production, are all units of weight.[2] This is done by assigning a standard weight to each commodity that is to be measured in bushels. These bushels depend on the commodities being measured and the moisture content. Some of the more common ones are:
- Oats
- Barley: 48 lb[2] = 21.77243376 kg
- Malted barley: 34 lb = 15.42214058 kg
- Shelled maize (corn) at 15.5% moisture by weight: 56 lb[2] = 25.40117272 kg
- Wheat at 13.5% moisture by weight and soybeans at 13% moisture by weight: 60 lb[2] = 27.2155422 kg
Other specific values are defined (and those definitions may vary within different jurisdictions, including from state to state in the United States) for other grains, oilseeds, fruits, vegetables, coal, hair, and many other commodities.
Under the America COMPETES Act, the United States is to phase out units such as the bushel and replace them with the metric system as used for all purposes in the rest of the world, and for all scientific and technical purposes world wide. It is therefore important to know how the bushel relates to the metric equivalent, and whether the bushels are used as units of mass or units of volume.
The name "bushel" has also been used to translate non-US units of a similar size and sometimes shared origin, like the German "Scheffel".
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[edit] History
The bushel was originally a measure of capacity for grain. During the Middle Ages, the bushel of wheat was supposed to weigh 64 tower pounds, but when the tower system was abolished in the 16th century, it was described as 56 avoirdupois pounds. The bushel was rarely used in Scotland, Ireland or Wales during the Middle Ages.
[edit] See also
[edit] Links
[edit] References
- ^ "Bushel". Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). Oxford, England. 1989.
- ^ a b c d e William J. Murphy. "Tables for Weights and Measurement: Crops". University of Missouri Extension. http://extension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/crops/g04020.htm. Retrieved on 2008-12-18.
