Options to consider in a difficult grass growing year

With milk production from forage remaining stubbornly static, Biotal technical support manager Roy Eastlake believes farmers must challenge what they are trying to achieve with grass silage.

He says it is important to consider three factors when thinking about silage: yield, energy and dry matter (DM).

He argues quantity all too often dominates decision making, with success defined by ‘having enough’ and keeping ‘clamps full’ but this disregards the quality attributes.

He says: “Consider what happens when a plant matures. You certainly get more bulk to satisfy the quantity requirement but quality declines. At its peak, a grass plant will be about 12.8MJ/kg DM, but grass silage typically averages about 10.6MJ.

“Not only do mature heavy crops have lower energy but they can also be harder to wilt, making it more challenging to hit the DM target.”

Mr Eastlake believes systems of more frequent, shorter interval cutting offer a change in thinking.

He says cutting at 28-day intervals, when grass is at the flag leaf stage, will give a cut crop closer to 12MJ.

Then, by operating a silage-in-a-day policy, only cutting what will be picked up the same day, respiration and field losses can be reduced to preserve energy. With smaller cuts on the ground at any one time, the risk of crop damage due to rainfall is also reduced, with more opportunity to time cutting to avoid rain.

“Lighter crops will dry out more quickly and more evenly to hit target dry matter, and by following good crop management, including the use of crop and condition-specific inoculants, we can deliver well-fermented and palatable forage.

“The more frequent cutting combined with leaving a decent stubble can then exploit the rapid growth potential of grass, allowing target total quantities to be reached, albeit from more cuts.”

As farmers strive to produce more milk and meat from home-grown grass, forage preservation experts, Volac, will be showcasing latest techniques to help make consistently better silage.

Among these will be a new update on its ‘cut to clamp’ initiative, launched last year to help producers get more from silage by focusing closely on six key areas – cutting, wilting, harvesting, treating, clamping and feeding.

New for 2018, the initiative features specific updates for the ‘multi-cut’ method of making silage.

New to their portfolio of mixes and growing on the Oliver Seeds stand in Field 10 will be Landmark Spectrum. This herbal ley mix has up to 18 different species, including cocksfoot, Timothy, sainfoin, bird’s foot trefoil, sheep’s parsley and yarrow, plus red, white and crimson clovers.

Oliver Seeds general manager Rod Bonshor says: “Multi-species swards have a lot of advantages over straight rye-grass leys.

“Enhanced stress tolerance and persistence in difficult growing conditions, greater root mass and depth, earlier spring and later autumn growth, more palatability, trace elements and minerals, and some of the plants have anthelmintic properties.

“Herbal leys will not yield as high as rye-grass and it is difficult to control weeds chemically, but on many farms they are now being grown and used effectively.”