Modern silage harvesting technologies

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

For many decades, silage has been and remains one of the most useful and valuable types of green fodder for animals and birds. It boasts not only a high calorie content, but also a large amount of vitamins, trace elements. Therefore, its regular use provides strong immunity and good weight gain. So every person whose activities are related to animal husbandry and poultry farming should know about the technology of silage harvesting.

What is a silo?

First of all, you need to figure out what a silo is. These are green plants preserved in a special way. In the course of canning, not only lactic acid contained in the stems and leaves of some of them is used, but also special chemicals that accelerate the fermentation process.

Harvest takes relatively little time and does not depend on weather conditions, unlike, for example, hay and haylage. At the same time, silage can be stored for many months and even several years. If the storage technology is not violated, then its nutritionalsubstances will not be lost. The specific composition depends on what kind of greens were used in ensiling.

The selection of suitable raw materials should be approached very seriously and responsibly. It is necessary not only to select the right plants, but also to accurately guess over time and choose the appropriate proportion. Only in this case it will be possible to obtain high-quality feed that provides farm animals and birds with all the necessary substances and calories.

Classification of plants by ensiling speed

Specialists involved in the development of silage harvesting technology have long divided most plants into three categories according to the degree of silage. They are called simply and no wonder: easy, difficult and non-silos. Therefore, the choice of suitable raw materials should be done very carefully in order to avoid mistakes that lead to the deterioration of valuable raw materials. Here are some concrete examples.

Easy-ensiling crops, for example, include corn, grasses, bean-grass mash, sunflower, cabbage leaves, pumpkin, potatoes, and watermelon. They are suitable for forage preparation - both in mixed form and singly. The green mass itself releases the necessary substances that start the complex ensiling process.

It is customary to refer alfalfa, quinoa, clover and sweet clover to hard-to-silage. By themselves, they secrete a small amount of lactic acid, so the process, if it goes on, is extremely slow. Therefore, experts recommend mixing these crops with easy-to-silage crops in equal proportions.

Finally, non-silos. itnettles, tops of tomatoes, potatoes and other solanaceous, whips of zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon, cucumbers and melons. These greens do not produce lactic acid at all, which is why the ensiling process does not start at all. However, you should not give up - under certain conditions, it is possible to produce silage from these crops. The easiest way is to mix greens with easily silage. True, the proportion here will be already 1:3. You can also add easy-to-saccharify foods such as molasses, ground cereals, and boiled potatoes to greens.

When does raw material procurement start?

This is a rather difficult question. The fact is that although the technology for harvesting corn silage does not differ from sunflower, potato or watermelon silage, the harvesting time can vary significantly. After all, different plants have different growing seasons. In some, nutrients peak in June, while in others, in August. In addition, the same plant ensils well at one time and very poorly at another.

Take clover as an example. If you collect it during the formation of buds, then ensiling is extremely slow - which is why it is classified as difficult to ensil. But if you wait a few weeks and mow it during the blooming of flowers, then the process will go by itself, without mixing with other crops. The same is true of perennial grasses that have been grown with large amounts of nitrogen fertilizers. In the early stages of the growing season, they are very poorly ensiled. But when heading, the process startsindependently and quite easily. Also, the problem can be solved if the green mass is dried before ensiling it. When humidity drops to 60-65 percent, the process is more active.

Calendar blanks

Therefore, you need to have a kind of calendar at hand, in which the appropriate terms for harvesting green crops are briefly and clearly indicated. Let's talk briefly about the most commonly used plants.

• Sunflower - in the early stages of flowering.
• Sorghum and corn - when grains reach wax or milky-wax ripeness. But in regions with a harsh climate, where they cannot reach this phase, earlier ensiling is possible.
• Lupin - when shiny beans appear.
• Soybeans - browning beans located at the bottom of the plant.
• Winter rye - in the first days of heading.

Knowing the optimal ensiling time for each plant, you can easily achieve excellent results.

Normalize humidity

Optimum is silo moisture in the range of 70-75 percent. In this case, the reaction is most active, and weight loss due to a decrease in the proportion of juice is sharply reduced. How to achieve the desired indicator?

For example, consider the harvesting of one of the most promising, but at the same time quite problematic crops - corn. As mentioned above, it is harvested during milky ripeness - at this time, ensiling is going especially well. Alas, its humidity is from 82 to 87 percent - much more than required. Because of this, the quality of the finishedsilage is significantly reduced. And together with the resulting juice, up to 30 percent of the total mass is lost!

To solve the problem, experts recommend using a special technology for harvesting corn silage. High-moisture raw materials are carefully crushed on special equipment, after which they are mixed with also crushed dry components. This can be straw cutting, as well as legumes and grain forage crops with low moisture. For example, if the moisture content of the corn mass is 85 percent, then the proportion of chopped straw should be 15-20 percent. And at a humidity of 80 percent, this figure drops to 10-12. Thanks to this, the ensiling process is actively underway, and not only corn is involved, but also dry straw. And the moisture content of the silo corresponds to the optimum - about 70-75 percent.

Optimum process temperature

The technology of harvesting silage from sunflower, corn and any other crop is based on the work of lactic acid bacteria. It is thanks to them that the greens turn into a high-calorie, long-term stored food.

In general, they successfully develop in a fairly large temperature range - from 5 to 50 degrees Celsius. But the most favorable indicator is 25-35 degrees.

However, today there are two types of ensiling - cold and hot. The first is characterized by a silo temperature at the time of fermentation of about 30 degrees. And the second - from 50 and above. However, hot ensiling has a serious drawback - weight loss can reach 40percent! Of course, this is unacceptable. Therefore, cold ensiling is the most popular today.

In order to lower the fermentation temperature, the silage laying process must be carried out correctly. Firstly, the whole procedure should not take more than three to four days. Secondly, the plant mass must be carefully crushed and compacted. Finally, thirdly, it is necessary to ensure complete isolation from the surrounding air during storage of the silo. Under these conditions, ensiling takes place at the optimum temperature.

Where to silage raw materials?

Trenched silage technology has been used for many years. On Soviet collective farms, tractors and excavators made special silo pits with a volume of hundreds and thousands of cubic meters. Silage was laid in them, after which it was sprinkled with earth. Thanks to this, good tightness was ensured at a low cost of time and effort. After all, the difference in the technology of harvesting silage and haylage, as already found out earlier, lies precisely in the lack of air access from the outside, while when harvesting haylage it is very important to ensure good ventilation.

In addition, special silos were used. This is a more time-consuming procedure, and the volume of the towers was usually much inferior to the trenches.

Well, modern technologies for harvesting silage provide another option - special plastic bags or sleeves. They have a huge volume - several hundred cubic meters. The advantage is rapid field deployment.

Carrying out the procedure

The procedure itself is quite simple. The green mass is carefully crushed and laid in a trench or sleeve. In this case, it is desirable to follow the correct sequence. When using plants belonging to different groups in terms of ensiling speed, you need to alternate them - the more layers, the better the process will go.

The same can be said for dry additives - they must be well mixed with the wet mass. Otherwise, they will remain dry and the silage will be uneven - too wet in one part and dry in another.

Immediately after laying, the silo must be sealed to start the process.

Feeding animals

For most plants, the ensiling process takes 15 to 20 days. In legumes, it increases to 45-60 days. After this period, the finished silage can be used for feeding animals and poultry. If the tightness of the sleeve or trench is not broken, the silo can be stored for several years.

It is very important not to take food with a margin - the entire mass should be eaten within a day. Otherwise, its nutritional value is significantly reduced due to the launch of irreversible chemical processes.

Conclusion

This concludes our article. Now you know much more about silage harvesting technology. And also figured out the characteristics of various plants and methods of ensiling.