When to cut silage in a drought?
So how should you react to hot dry weather and what is the best way to make silage in these conditions? Should you mow whilst the grass is green and lush or wait until there is a bit more bulk
Precast or cast in-situ concrete silage clamp walls?
The walls of a silage clamp - if you’re having walls - will probably be made of concrete…. I’m often asked if precast is better than cast on site or cast in-situ walls.
Is adding beet pulp to the silage clamp a good idea?
is there any merit in adding ingredients such as sugar beet pulp to the clamp as you are making the silage; what are the benefits and what are the risks?
How to keep silage effluent off clean areas?
A sleeping policeman or a channel across the front of the silage clamp? Which should you choose, and is there another option to consider?
Push-off buckrake or silage fork flick?
When it comes to levelling silage on the clamp are you a fork flicker or a push over?…. But here is the thing - in my opinion there is no such thing as the perfect flick!
What’s the cheapest way to build a silage clamp?
a silage clamp is a business investment and so the optimum solution should be the lowest capital cost for the anticipated outcome. In other words how do you spend the least on a clamp and still get good silage out of it?
Are remote silage clamps a good idea?
faced with land spread over half a dozen counties, where the hell do you build the silage clamps to hold all this stuff?
Why is Silage Effluent so pollutive?
there are a whole load of rules and regulations concerning how you deal with the stinky stuff. So exactly what is it about silage effluent that makes all those strict rules so necessary?
Why wet silage is bad silage
Our silage results are good apart from the low dry matter and low sugars, but why are the sugars so low? ….because there are three silage values that are tightly linked together, low dry matter, pH and available sugars.
Are fibres in concrete silo floors worth the cost?
Is it worth paying to have fibres added to your ready mix concrete for a new silage clamp?
Automated silage clamp sheeting - fantasy or future?
a machine that sheets the whole silage clamp, weighs the covers down and can also do the whole thing in reverse to open up for feeding
The temperature of silage and how hot is too hot?
it’s common knowledge that hot silage is not great silage, but silage does heat up during fermentation so when does this heat become a problem?
Which silage inoculant should you choose?
If you have decided that silage inoculants can help you make better use of the forage you grow, then the obvious question is which one should you use
Is bagged silage better silage?
maybe silage in bags (or should that be silage sausages) offers the best of both worlds, the flexibility of bales without the building cost of clamps?
Is a silage shear grab worth the money?
the shear grab is an extremely valuable piece of kit that might just be the most important thing outside the milking parlour
Can you build your own silage clamps?
Is it a good idea to use a specialist builder to construct your new silage clamp and how do you decide who to trust?
Steering silage trailers into the future
Steering the axles of a silage trailer can make the whole rig much more nimble and manoeuvrable in a tight spot… But manoeuvrability is only part of the story, steering trailer axles can also drastically reduce tyre wear - by up to 60% - and damage to grass sward in the field too.
Who should design a silage clamp?
…rules are there to make sure the silage stored in a clamp doesn’t cause pollution and that’s a good thing, ……in essence the rules are there to make sure someone has thought about the clamps and designed a compliant structure.
How to avoid mud on the road in a wet silage harvest
Mud on tyres inevitably leads to mud on road and as forage harvester output increases the amount of soil carting tractors and silage trailers can deposit on the highway increases too. Bigger foot prints spread mud on more tarmac and loads come thick and fast as does the brown stuff.
Are big mowers better mowers?
New trailed combination mowers from SIP and Kuhn are being introduced offering 13m to 15m of cutting capacity with each pass; as long as you can muster enough horsepower to drive them. But what are your chances of seeing one cutting your or your neighbours grass?