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Silage and forage
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After this year's stress on perennial forage pastures, forage stands need to be evaluated, says a Purdue University expert. The April freeze, coupled with the dry summer, left some Indiana pastures in poor condition. However, this creates an opportunity for growers to make improvements, according to Keith Johnson, Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service forage expert. Johnson recommends: * Having a soil test done, if one hasn't been done recently * Walking the...
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Forage quality changes with maturity and storage. A forage test can supply useful information about the nutritive value of hay or pasture. This information can be used to adjust the amount of supplement fed. If forage quality is high, the producer can feed less supplement, resulting in savings. Conversely, if the forage quality is low, diet supplementation can improve animal performance, and increase profits. This article discusses how to take a forage sample and how to interpret the laboratory...
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Like playing chess, outwitting annual ryegrass, a major weed in Western Australia which can develop resistance to more than one herbicide at a time, requires constant vigilance and a strategic approach. Farmers now have a greater understanding of the value of pasture phases for controlling herbicide-resistant annual ryegrass in low to medium rainfall areas, thanks to Graeme Doole from the School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Institute of Agriculture, at the University of...
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It may not be entirely surprising that the release of a glyphosate tolerant alfalfa crop has been received as highly controversial. Roundup Ready® alfalfa is different from other GE crops in that its pollen is easily dispersed by honey bees over distances that can exceed three kilometers. Transgenic pollen is likely to fertilize flowers of untransformed alfalfa plants that grow on an estimated 20 million acres throughout the United States. The resulting contamination of seed with...
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Sowing cover crops between rounds of cash crops can protect fields and enrich Midwest soils. So Jeremy W. Singer, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agronomist, wanted to find out how many farmers in the Corn Belt actually use cover crops. Singer works at the National Soil Tilth Laboratory, Ames, Iowa. Collaborators at Iowa State University sent a survey about cover crop use to a random sample of 3,500 crop farmers in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota. They ended up with more...
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Grass silage forms the basal forage for the vast majority of dairy and beef cattle in Ireland and the United Kingdom. During the ensiling process major changes occur in the chemical composition of herbage. Two major changes are firstly, the conversion of water soluble carbohydrate primarily to lactic and volatile fatty acids and secondly, an increase in the rapidly soluble component of crude protein due to proteolysis and deamination processes. Traditionally, it has been...
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A new Queensland-bred forage oat variety, Genie, offers a new grazing option and significant million-dollar benefits to livestock producers. Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries, Tim Mulherin, said the breeding program demonstrated how government and industry could work together to benefit Australian farmers. Mr Mulherin said funding and field support from Heritage Seeds and Meat and Livestock Australia were integral to the oat breeding program. In launching the...
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A study by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the University of North Dakota lays a foundation for eventually allowing ranchers to get Web-based information on the quality and quantity of forage plants in their fields. Ranchers could use this information to determine stocking rates, as well as how much carbon is stored in their forage plants. Scientists Rebecca Phillips and Ofer Beeri have developed a way to measure rangeland forage plant yields in pounds per acre, and their...
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Recent rains across northern and central Indiana give producers a small window to accomplish forage management related tasks, said a Purdue University expert. One of those tasks is seeding crops. Producers must be cognizant of the time of season they seed in, said Keith Johnson, Purdue Extension forage specialist. “It’s too late to feel good about seeding alfalfa in the very northern parts of the state, but if you have fallow land and received rainfall, there’s still time to...
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EU ministers and national experts are due to approve a genetically modified (GMO) sugar beet variety this month despite a long running dispute over the use of biotechnology. Officials say around 10 GMO products, mostly maize types but also cotton, soybeans and a high-starch potato, are scheduled for discussion at various levels of the EU in the next few months. Although the bloc's member governments clash consistently over GMOs, never reaching the required majority under its...
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The practice of making sweet ensilage, the favoured method of the early protagonists, involved allowing the forage in the silo to heat to a temperature above 160 oF (71 oC; Fry, 1885). This practice, which would today be met with horror by the farming community, was promoted well into the 20th century by respected bodies such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Anon., 1926). Sweet ensilage (with its high level of undesirable volatile fatty acids) is probably also...
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In temperate regions of the world forage legumes growing in spring and summer are frequently stored as silage for delayed use during periods of feed shortage. However, in contrast with most grass species, they often undergo fermentation pathways that are detrimental from a nutritional perspective. In the ensilage process there is an early and short aerobic phase followed by a major anaerobic phase during storage time, and finally a new exposure to air when feeding the ensiled...
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The points of the silage triangle are represented by persons responsible for (1) the animals, (2) the forage, and (3) the harvesting/ensiling processes. In some beef and dairy operations, one person is responsible for all three points. But in many instances, both growing the silage crop and harvesting and ensiling the crop are done completely on a contract basis, creating a situation where a different person is at each point of the triangle. When communication between the points of the...
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Biotal forage inoculants manufactured by Lallemand Animal Nutrition, Milwaukee, Wis., feature a new formula for improved stability.
This new formulation ensures the product stays viable when mixed with water for application. Once the bacteria in inoculants have been re-activated by mixing with water they begin to produce acids as they do when they are applied to forages. In many inoculants this is uncontrolled and the bacteria can die off quickly from the effects if the acids. Biotal's...
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The primary goal of making silage is to maximize the preservation of original nutrients in the forage crop for feeding at a later date. Unfortunately, fermentation in the silo is a very uncontrolled process usually leading to less than optimal preservation of nutrients. In order to assist in the fermentation process, various silage additives have been used to improve nutrient and energy recovery, often with subsequent improvements in animal performance. This review will focus on some practical...
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Grass silage is, and will remain, the basal forage for the majority of beef and dairy cattle in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Northwestern Europe and the Nordic countries during the winter indoor feeding period. Currently in Ireland and the UK 22 and 50 million tonnes, respectively, are ensiled annually (Wilkinson and Stark, 1992), half of which are treated with an additive. Most silage in Ireland and the UK is harvested by contractor using selfpropelled precision-chop forage harvesters...
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In South Africa summer rainfall occurs in the northern parts and winter rainfall in the southern parts. In some areas of the Southern Cape, rainfall varies from 750 to 1200 mm annually and rain occurs throughout the year. Even in this area farmers need to irrigate pastures as total rainfall and rain distribution vary considerably from year to year. To achieve the continuous supply of high quality roughage that forms the basis of profitable dairy farming, crops or grasses must...
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