Silage Advisory Centre

Chris Davis and his family farm some 250 acres around Heathfield, on the Sussex Weald, over half of which is rented. Everything farmed is reseeded on a five-yearly basis, providing fodder for their 40-strong suckler herd and youngstock, and their 150 Poll Dorset ewes and offspring. Surplus forage sold off as hay or silage.

Operating their farm alongside an agricultural merchants and contracting business, the Davis family are well-versed in the benefits of Aber High Sugar Grasses, and have opted to use their own ‘long term conservation mix’ including the varieties AberDart, AberGlyn, AberAvon and Aber Magic.

These varieties have not just been chosen for their high sugars and digestibility – associated with high feed value silage and good animal performance - but they are also important for their consistent quality and yields throughout the entire growing season.

“We don’t want to cut our silage early as we want the bulk,” says Mr Davis. “But we don’t want to find that the later cut crop is of an inferior quality.”

Analysis of silage made in June 2009 came out at a dry matter of 51 per cent, metabolisable energy of 11.2 MJ/kg DM, crude protein at 13.5 per cent and sugars at 5.8 per cent.

“All silage is cut and baled within 24 hours and it is also chopped to a length of about 50mm before being baled,” he says. “We think the chopping assists with the fermentation process by helping to exclude the air from such a high dry matter crop, and then there’s the further benefit that the cattle don’t seem to drop and waste so much.

“Similarly, the high sugar content of the grass is important for good fermentation without the use of an additive.”

Describing this first cut silage as ‘one step back from haylage’, even the second cut, taken in late-September had a DM of 40 per cent, ME of 11.1 MJ/kg DM, crude protein of 12.5 per cent and sugars at 5.2 per cent.

“This level of sugar from an autumn harvested crop is far more than you would typically expect, even in summer,” says Mr Davis, also observing that the high dry matter of both cuts is important in minimising liquid slurry output from the cattle – an increasingly important consideration today.

But perhaps the greatest testament to both the grassland and the silage is the level of intake and the animal performance.

“The high sugar grasses are certainly very palatable,” says Mr Davis. “If there’s an area that gets missed in the drilling – maybe because the ground was too wet – you can always see it from the pattern of grazing and the preference for the high sugar grass areas.”

As for animal performance, last year’s lambs averaged carcase weights of 22kg; bull carcases weighed in at 350kg and heifers averaged 310kg.

With cattle born in November and sold the following Christmas at an average age of 13 months, all rearing was on grass and silage alone up to 11 months, with the only concentrate offered in the last two months before sale.