SilAC at Scotgrass and Balmoral Shows
“The quality of silage produced on farms can often make the difference between profit and loss and always influence the ease of the winter livestock management”, said Dave Davies, Silage Researcherat the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) – a member of the new Silage Advisory Centre. “The production of high quality silage makes many of the day to day management decisions on livestock farms so much easier to address.”
Improving profitability on livestock farms requires an optimal balance between increasing the value of produce sold and reducing the total cost of production. On grassland farms, the high price of purchased concentrates has refocused attention on the opportunities provided by high quality silage to facilitate cost reduction.
“There are many different aspects to silage production and management, whether it be making choices about what crop to ensile and when to cut it, or working out the most cost-effective conservation method,” explains Dr. Davies. “With the Silage Advisory Centre we try to support farmers in making these decisions. At this year’s Scotgrass and Balmoral Shows, we will present recent research which can aid farmers to improve forage management on farm in a profitable way”.
Using red clover as a silage crop
One of the first developments from the Silage Advisory Centre which will be presented at this year’s Balmoral Show, is independent trials run at Aberystwyth University looking at the use of red clover silage as an alternative forage option which can offer nutritional benefits and cost savings over grass silage.
“Introducing red clover into ‘on-farm’ grown crops can reduce requirements for bought-in supplements as they provide a source of affordable home grown protein, offering between 16and 20% crude protein, of better quality than grass,” says Dr Davies. “Not only that, but such legumes ‘fix’ their own nitrogen which leads to further savings in fertilizer costs. The crop also provides benefits in rotational systems, with the enhanced soil fertility resulting from clover, making other crops in a rotation more profitable.”
To cut or not to cut
A second area of investigation has looked into the increasingly unpredictable weather conditions and into the pros and cons of a ‘Smash and Grab’ approach. “To cut or to wait until the weather improvesis very often the question when considering harvesting forage for silage production”, explains Dr Davies. ”Whichever approach you take it is a gamble but farmers need to stack the cards in their favour”.
A farmer can decide to delay cutting until the weather improves, but this will significantly reduce the production potential of any silage and subsequent grazing sward. “Studies at both Hillsborough in Northern Ireland and Hurley in the south east of England indicated differences of up to 2.5 litres of milk per day comparing grass harvested at approximately two weeks apart”, says Dr Davies. “Other studies with beef cattle show 0.3 kg live-weight gain/day differences between high and low D value silages.”
The second option a farmer has is to cut as soon as he has a window of 1 day without rain. “In this case, the crop chemical composition will be good but the risk is of rain reducing the dry matter content of the silage and the potential to increase effluent production and increase the risks of a poor fermentation”, comments Dr Davies.
“Ultimately the choice is yours but if you have the opportunity to harvest a proportion of your land at the optimum digestibility then the benefits are likely to outweigh the risks and this is where baled silage could offer benefits”, concludes Dr Davies.
-end-
