Bushel

A bushel is a unit of volume, used (with somewhat different definitions) 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.

Related Topics:
Imperial unit - U.S. customary unit - Commodities - Agriculture

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• 1 U.S. bushel = 35.23907 liters
• 1 Imperial bushel = 36.36872 litres

The Imperial bushel equals 8 Imperial gallons.

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The U.S. or Winchester bushel was originally defined as the volume of a cylindrical container 18½ inches in diameter and 8 inches deep; it is now defined as 2150.42 cubic inches exactly. It is divided into eight dry gallons, which are different from the liquid gallons with which most Americans are more familiar. Nor are they the same as the Imperial gallon.

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Bushels are now most often used as units of mass rather than of volume. The bushels in which grains are bought and sold on commodity markets or at local elevators, and for reports of grain production, are all units of mass. 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; some of the more common ones are (all exact):

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• Oats, U.S.: 32 lb ≈ 14.515 kg
• Oats, Canada: 34 lb ≈ 15.422 kg
• Barley: 48 lb ≈ 21.772 kg
• Maize (corn): 56 lb ≈ 25.401 kg
• Wheat and soybeans: 60 lb ≈ 27.215 kg

Other specific values are defined (and those definitions may vary in different jurisdictions, including from state to state in the U.S.) for other grains, oilseeds, fruits, vegetables, coal, hair, and many other commodities.

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Government policy in both the United States and the United Kingdom 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.

Related Topics:
United States - United Kingdom - Metric system

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