Silage 2021

roosterman71

Biscuitus wrote: »

Because the sun is out!!! What are you waiting for!!!

Seriously though some lads just get into a panic as if we won't get sunny weather again. I have a dry farm and yesterday evening the grass was still to wet to cut after 4 days of sun. I'll be waiting another week or two, I'll get more yield and a better preservation from the drier crop.

My land wouldn't be that dry. Walked some of it on Saturday and the grass was saturated. Probably would be OK to mow today. Once the cover is gone the ground will dry out rapidly. Another field had water lying on it on Saturday evening

Dunedin

Tigerpants wrote: »

Am I missing something here, lads are flat out at silage, but there is no growth and crops are extremely light. What is with the mad panic?

Make hay while the sun shines and all that.

Panic is not the correct word. If the weather is good, just get on with the work. I have a neighbour that drives me mad - he’s full time farmer, me part time. I do out a list of works for each Saturday and generally get most done. He’s always saying ‘what’s the panic’ - doesn’t get the bit that a day is a week to me but my motto is simply when work needs to be done I’ll do it. His place is a tip all year whereas I just couldn’t live like that (maybe it’s my OCD!!)

Jb1989

Dunedin wrote: »

Do cattle prefer the silage baked? Never would have thought to do that. Not even sure if the missus would let me put it in the oven.

They not a fan of it baked since they got the air fryer here.

wrangler

Dunedin wrote: »

Make hay while the sun shines and all that.

Panic is not the correct word. If the weather is good, just get on with the work. I have a neighbour that drives me mad - he’s full time farmer, me part time. I do out a list of works for each Saturday and generally get most done. He’s always saying ‘what’s the panic’ - doesn’t get the bit that a day is a week to me but my motto is simply when work needs to be done I’ll do it. His place is a tip all year whereas I just couldn’t live like that (maybe it’s my OCD!!)

Most times, if a silage crop is doing badly, you're better to cut it and start again.
Grass that grew earlier is better out of the way

RedPeppers

RedPeppers wrote: »

Unfortunately not. When I booked contractor yesterday there was no mention of rain. I’m north east Galway so praying rain doesn’t come over this far to us

Well got the fright of my life when I got up yesterday morning at 5am to milk early as contractor booked for 7. It was spilling down rain, checked weather app and could see plenty more was coming. Stopped raining at 10am. All grass was tedded and raked up Monday evening. Contractor came at 2pm and couldn’t believe how dry grass was. Got it all in and covered by 10pm. Not a drop of effluent this morning Such a relief to have it done

Dunedin

wrangler wrote: »

Most times, if a silage crop is doing badly, you're better to cut it and start again.
Grass that grew earlier is better out of the way

Fully agree.

Mooooo

Plenty heavy crops around, took out strong fields on heifer ground and got 5 bales to the acre, grazed 4 weeks. Majority of silage ground grass is fit, it's ground conditions arent good enough to take the gear.
Wont be able to hold off on that bit of ground much longer gonna have to tear into draining it, again, at some stage

mahoney_j

Tigerpants wrote: »

Am I missing something here, lads are flat out at silage, but there is no growth and crops are extremely light. What is with the mad panic?

There is savage growth blast 2 weeks ,crops are anything but light and quality dropping by the day ,

Welding Rod

We had good sunny day Friday. Same again Saturday, and cut 12 acres Saturday evening. Sunday was a super day, wind and sun and got it rowed up out of the swath in the afternoon. Baled Monday morning in good dry but cloudy weather.
Still though, the bales were damn heavy. Bloody surprised me.

mahoney_j

Biscuitus wrote: »

Because the sun is out!!! What are you waiting for!!!

Seriously though some lads just get into a panic as if we won't get sunny weather again. I have a dry farm and yesterday evening the grass was still to wet to cut after 4 days of sun. I'll be waiting another week or two, I'll get more yield and a better preservation from the drier crop.

Sorry but after 4 dry days it can’t be that wet ,a good silt will sort any excess n and no issues preserving ,wait another 2 weeks and you’ll just have silage that will barely maintain condition on cows dried off in good condition and require high protein concentrate on beef farms ,I thought more lads were coming round to making better quality silage

Bass Reeves

Biscuitus wrote: »

Because the sun is out!!! What are you waiting for!!!

Seriously though some lads just get into a panic as if we won't get sunny weather again. I have a dry farm and yesterday evening the grass was still to wet to cut after 4 days of sun. I'll be waiting another week or two, I'll get more yield and a better preservation from the drier crop.

Very hard with present weather to get grass completely dry before cutting. One advantage of present weather is recovery. Ground cut now will recover very fast if fertlizer spread ASAP.

Grass drys very fast on the ground. Wilt will take a huge amount of moisture out of he grass. Raking 12-18 hours before baling will remove 99% of external moisture. There is a difference between silage cut now and 10-12 days time. Grass cut now is flowering in that the seed heads are just emerging. The flower heads are digestible. Over next 6-10 the stems will lower in digestibility and the seed heads will hardly be digestibile at all. as in any weed such as docks will go completely to seed and these seeds will stay on the ground after harvesting.

There is a balance between bulk and quality. That balance is best achieved (on a beef farm) by cutting from about 22th May to the end of it. Before that quanity is not there but quality is much higher (the dairy man targets that and some winter finishers).

With me cattle are now in headlands for next 2-3 days. They will not spend longer than 24 hours in any field. They will clean the tops off the headlands and eat up any silage not collected by balers. Sillage paddocks are 3-5 acres

memorystick

It could be a great year for hay yet. The frogs are circling the ponds.

mengele

memorystick wrote: »

It could be a great year for hay yet. The frogs are circling the ponds.

Last year was the best year of hay I ever made. I actually bales it this day last year. The nitrogen had just gone, it hasn't got steamy and was saved nice and green. Calves thrived on it this year.

Danzy

My silage field when set 4 years ago only had varieties that head out from June 6th.

You'd notice the helping hand in it .

The last 5 days have been the first run of ones here in North West Cork that would drive growth.

Looking at cutting this Sunday if weather Plays ball.

Wanted to cut around 25th but The volume wasn't there.

Not pleased but that's life. Grazed it in the spring.

Jb1989

Danzy wrote: »

My silage field when set 4 years ago only had varieties that head out from June 6th.

You'd notice the helping hand in it .

The last 5 days have been the first run of ones here in North West Cork that would drive growth.

Looking at cutting this Sunday if weather Plays ball.

Wanted to cut around 25th but The volume wasn't there.

Not pleased but that's life. Grazed it in the spring.

Wouldnt worry, early grass is worth more on the cattles back grazed in the spring time rather than baled for the winter.

DBK1

Tigerpants wrote: »

Am I missing something here, lads are flat out at silage, but there is no growth and crops are extremely light. What is with the mad panic?

I dunno what part of the country you’re in but there’s no light crops around here, midlands. We’re after a few long days baling with a lot of ground covered and 90% of it was heavier than any other year. It’d want to be, it’s all 3 weeks later than normal being baled.

We’d normally be averaging about 8 bales per acre in first cuts, what we’ve baled the last few days is averaging near 11 bales an acre with the heaviest being one man that bales his own, we just wrap and he had 90 bales on 5.5 acres.

DBK1

mahoney_j wrote: »

Sorry but after 4 dry days it can’t be that wet ,a good silt will sort any excess n and no issues preserving ,wait another 2 weeks and you’ll just have silage that will barely maintain condition on cows dried off in good condition and require high protein concentrate on beef farms ,I thought more lads were coming round to making better quality silage

Agreed, as long as there wasn’t water lying in the field there’s no way it couldn’t have been dry after Monday and Tuesday. We had lads panicking to get stuff baled Monday eve that was only cut on Sunday but was tedded out Monday morning and was getting too dry very quick. It was planned to be baled Tuesday eve but we ended up baling half the night Monday instead or it would have been haylage by Tuesday.

Like yourself I get it hard to believe there are still lads that don’t understand how to make good silage. Unless I was farming pure bog I’d have to question my farming practices if I didn’t have some bit of silage ready to cut by June.

DBK1

mengele wrote: »

Last year was the best year of hay I ever made. I actually bales it this day last year. The nitrogen had just gone, it hasn't got steamy and was saved nice and green. Calves thrived on it this year.

Same as that, I baled lovely dry green hay on the 16th May last year and it was the best hay we ever made. It was from green leafy grass and was still green being baled. As good of feed in it as any silage.

ruwithme

DBK1 wrote: »

Agreed, as long as there wasn’t water lying in the field there’s no way it couldn’t have been dry after Monday and Tuesday. We had lads panicking to get stuff baled Monday eve that was only cut on Sunday but was tedded out Monday morning and was getting too dry very quick. It was planned to be baled Tuesday eve but we ended up baling half the night Monday instead or it would have been haylage by Tuesday.

Like yourself I get it hard to believe there are still lads that don’t understand how to make good silage. Unless I was farming pure bog I’d have to question my farming practices if I didn’t have some bit of silage ready to cut by June.

Jayus lad,if you're baling on the country,you'll be questioning alot of your customers that you'll be only baling for in June & early july.

At least a small bit of preaching on here re quality silage of others.

FintanMcluskey

ruwithme wrote: »

Jayus lad,if you're baling on the country,you'll be questioning alot of your customers that you'll be only baling for in June & early july.

At least a small bit of preaching on here re quality silage of others.

Agree

Not sure how applicable Dairy grass management(early, low yield high quality silage) is to suckler/beef enterprises

The natural hayseed allocated meadows can’t be cut until July anyway

DBK1

ruwithme wrote: »

Jayus lad,if you're baling on the country,you'll be questioning alot of your customers that you'll be only baling for in June & early july.

At least a small bit of preaching on here re quality silage of others.

We’re at the foot of the slieve blooms with plenty of bog around. Now definitely our land is not the worst in the country, far from it, but there’s plenty of very marginal land around. Probably nothing that compares to parts of north west of the country but there’s definitely poor ground around here too. On a normal year I’d say three quarters of first cut silage would be finished by mid June, even stuff we’d be baling where there’s lads turning turf in the next field. The quarter that’s later than that would be the older more old fashioned farmers with more of a “one and done” type attitude to silage cutting.

DBK1

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Agree

Not sure how applicable Dairy grass management(early, low yield high quality silage) is to suckler/beef enterprises

The natural hayseed allocated meadows can’t be cut until July anyway

I’d say beef farmers would outnumber dairy farmers be 3 or 4 to 1 around here. I wouldn’t be a fan of the 3 bales per acre crops that some of the dairy men do make from paddocks in April but I wouldn’t be classing June silage as early, low yield crops.

Most grass varieties head out between 20th May and 10th June. That’s the window lads need to aim for to get the best balance between bulk and quality. Anything after that and bulk increases but quality severely decreases. The longer lads leave it to bulk up the better for us as we get paid by the bale but the real cost is on the farmer the following winter.

Bass Reeves

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Agree

Not sure how applicable Dairy grass management(early, low yield high quality silage) is to suckler/beef enterprises

The natural hayseed allocated meadows can’t be cut until July anyway

I think they do not have to be closed until mid April. I know a lad that grazes them bare right up to that. Then he flies the fertlizer guidelines. He makes fairy decent silage or hay

vincenzolorenzo

This might be a daft question so excuse my ignorance but is the time the grass plant heads out not related to how long its growing rather than the date? So e.g. if I didn't close up field til the end of May it would be 4-6 weeks before it would go to seed?

yosemitesam1

vincenzolorenzo wrote: »

This might be a daft question so excuse my ignorance but is the time the grass plant heads out not related to how long its growing rather than the date? So e.g. if I didn't close up field til the end of May it would be 4-6 weeks before it would go to seed?

Bit of both.

Water John

The natural cycle grass always tries to achieve is, to go to seed before the longest day of the year. As above grazing very bare until Mid April keeps that in check.

Sugarbowl

What are ye going spreading for 2nd cut this year?

Dunedin

Sugarbowl wrote: »

What are ye going spreading for 2nd cut this year?

All gets slurry here and depending on the soil samples, it varies between 18.6.12 +s for the lower p &k fields to 27-2.5.10 +s for the others. Generally 3 bags to the acre.

whelan2

Mowing ours this evening. Grazed until 18th of April. Grazed bare. Nice crop on it

I says

Leaving it another week. Bulked up in the last week will have plenty of bales.

maidhc

I must be missing something. The ground is still reasonably wet, and apart from a couple of days last week the weather has been miserable. Still farmers are loosing their mind bringing in silage. Fields are in mess and the roads are destroyed with muck. The forecast isn’t bad at all. Why not wait to feck, it is still too early to panic.

Cavanjack

maidhc wrote: »

I must be missing something. The ground is still reasonably wet, and apart from a couple of days last week the weather has been miserable. Still farmers are loosing their mind bringing in silage. Fields are in mess and the roads are destroyed with muck. The forecast isn’t bad at all. Why not wait to feck, it is still too early to panic.

Depends where you are. We cut last Sunday and pitted it Tuesday. Dry as a bone and not a mark on the land. There was serious drying last weekend even though it was soaking wet on the Friday.

DBK1

maidhc wrote: »

I must be missing something. The ground is still reasonably wet, and apart from a couple of days last week the weather has been miserable. Still farmers are loosing their mind bringing in silage. Fields are in mess and the roads are destroyed with muck. The forecast isn’t bad at all. Why not wait to feck, it is still too early to panic.

What part of the country are you in Maidhc if you don’t mind me asking? There’s an awful lot of silage picked around here the last week and I haven’t seen a track left in a field anywhere nor as much as a handful of muck on the road.

Reggie.

DBK1 wrote: »

What part of the country are you in Maidhc if you don’t mind me asking? There’s an awful lot of silage picked around here the last week and I haven’t seen a track left in a field anywhere nor as much as a handful of muck on the road.

We are in the Midlands and the trailers left their mark around here it has to be said.

Dickie10

Reggie. wrote: »

We are in the Midlands and the trailers left their mark around here it has to be said.

theres midlands Longford and theres midlands East Laois , fair difference!

DBK1

Dickie10 wrote: »

theres midlands Longford and theres midlands East Laois , fair difference!

I’m midlands Offaly with plenty of bog around and haven’t noticed any major damage (definitely nothing more than usual anyway) in any fields yet.

Dunedin

DBK1 wrote: »

I’m midlands Offaly with plenty of bog around and haven’t noticed any major damage (definitely nothing more than usual anyway) in any fields yet.

Same as that here (Offaly too). My land would be heavy enough and I baled on Tuesday and it was fine. That said it got 4 good days from Saturday to Tuesday.

leoch

U 2 offaly guys anywhere near tullamore killeigh or geashill direction nice part of the world some nice farmland

maidhc

DBK1 wrote: »

What part of the country are you in Maidhc if you don’t mind me asking? There’s an awful lot of silage picked around here the last week and I haven’t seen a track left in a field anywhere nor as much as a handful of muck on the road.

East cork. Some got away with it, many didn’t.

memorystick

Any update on yer man who put in 120 acres and the walls burst. Lads need to relax and ease of the Teagascian advice.

I says

memorystick wrote: »

Any update on yer man who put in 120 acres and the walls burst. Lads need to relax and ease of the Teagascian advice.

Would that be a neighbour of mine I wonder? It happened up here to a lad during the week.

roosterman71

Gonna knock 50 or so acres today. Will report back later what it's like. All going for bales and hope to bale the lighter bits tomorrow evening and the rest on Monday

mr.stonewall

At pit at the moment. Majority of ground was grazed this spring. Super crop on it. Just starting to head. Wet ground but conditions good

Bass Reeves

I have slurry spread for second cut at this stage as well. Will get fertlizer out next week. Hope to be taking second cut last week in July

roosterman71

Engine error codes galore since this morning here when mowing. Kept going as best I could but tractor gone into limp mode. Blood pressure gone through the roof now. Still haven't told the father. Jaysus

endainoz

roosterman71 wrote: »

Engine error codes galore since this morning here when mowing. Kept going as best I could but tractor gone into limp mode. Blood pressure gone through the roof now. Still haven't told the father. Jaysus

That's two things that always go well together, aul lads and a breakdowns during silage season!

Bass Reeves

roosterman71 wrote: »

Engine error codes galore since this morning here when mowing. Kept going as best I could but tractor gone into limp mode. Blood pressure gone through the roof now. Still haven't told the father. Jaysus

That why I get the contractor to cut, bale and wrap it. Had a bit of an issue with tractor bringing them in but managed away

funkey_monkey

roosterman71 wrote: »

Engine error codes galore since this morning here when mowing. Kept going as best I could but tractor gone into limp mode. Blood pressure gone through the roof now. Still haven't told the father. Jaysus

What are you mowing with?

roosterman71

funkey_monkey wrote: »

What are you mowing with?

Fendt

Dunedin

leoch wrote: »

U 2 offaly guys anywhere near tullamore killeigh or geashill direction nice part of the world some nice farmland

Nope I’m the west side of Offaly but still plenty of good land around me too.