Is tap water OK for your silage inoculant?
All, or almost all, silage inoculants are supplied as either a powder or as concentrated liquid that’s diluted with water, but when was the last time you read the label?
Silage pH - when is it low enough?
The principal of making silage is well understood, pile it up, cover it up and let the bugs make some acid to get the pH down – that’s it isn’t it? And yes that’s about it, but what pH are we really looking for and what pH is “low enough”?
Silage trailer options
Traditionally there were two choices, self-unloading or tipping trailers, but today compactor or ejector trailers are a more common sight running in and out of silage clamps.
Making silage in a cold dry spring
The spring of 2021 might have just given us a taste of what much of the world has to face, cold dry conditions. For anyone trying to produce forage crops it’s a challenge we are not that familiar with.
When rain stops play
So the storm clouds are gathering, the weatherman got it wrong again and the RainToday app tells the sorry story of rainfall in the next half an hour. Sod’s Law states that you are halfway through the critical silage harvest so just what should you do?
Temporary silage clamps
The 2020 UK maize harvest look like it’s going to produce good yields and maybe you’re in the tricky position of not having enough clamp space
Silage hygiene and why is important
The image of silage to non-farming folk is dominated by “that” smell. It’s an image that couldn’t be much further from the ideal of “clean”, so why are we concentrating on the hygiene side of silage making?
Silage Clamp Covers
Today every farmer understands the importance of keeping rainfall and air – or more importantly oxygen – out of the clamp. A black plastic sheet does a good job of this doesn’t it? Maybe not a good as you might think, for one, no polythene sheet is entirely impermeable to oxygen……
Silage clamp overloading
…taking on more land or a really good growing season and you can start to run out of space very quickly…. as long as you have the headroom, you can just pile a bit more on top, and a bit more and a bit more – can’t you?
Do you need to sheet the walls of the silage clamp?
Anyone who has ever fitted side sheets to an empty silage clamp as the chopper is heading out to the fields will have wondered – is this really worth the effort?
Managing your silage contractor
more farmers and AD growers are contracting out the harvesting operations. The benefits are easy to see, someone else has to worry about all that expensive kit and find the drivers, plus you should benefit from a more timely operation. There are always two sides to every coin….. how do you get what you want from your silage contractor
Disc Mower or Mower Conditioner?
Most manufacturers offer the option of adding a conditioner to a plain disc mower, but these add weight to the tractor and the price tag - so what are the advantages of conditioners over straight mowers?
How fast can you mow?
From the 135 with a finger bar mower cutting at a snails pace to a Big M chasing down Lewis Hamilton, mowing speeds have increased…..
Are silage additives worth the money?
Additives are expensive, somewhere close to £1 million per tonne, but the manufacturers and suppliers make some very bold claims for enhanced performance by using silage additives…..
Planning the maize harvest
So why would you be thinking about planning the harvest – surely that waits until the nights draw in and the crop is turning brown? Well it’s never too early to starting making a plan…..
Rake or Merger?
The solution in the UK has always been a rake, from one to six rotors gathering over 60’ (for the biggest rakes) of crop into a single swath. Or that’s what we thought for years, but now there is another way. Mergers…..
Silage Clamp Drains
The current SSAFO regulations in the UK state that the clamp must have a catchment or containment drain around the outside of the walls….
Silage Clamp Consolidation
As forager output increases, ensuring good clamp consolidation using just the tyres of a tractor or shovel is getting more difficult. So…
Getting Silage Dry Matter Right
..for every ten trailer loads at the clamp, eight of them are just water and only two have any silage in them! – or do they?
Setting Silage Cutting Height
So the instructions might tell you exactly how to adjust the height of cut of a machine, but not the height it should be cutting. This begs the obvious question…….What is the correct height of cut for silage?