Arable silage

Common to add barley and peas when reseeding and cutting in the first half of the year to keep redshank at bay. Make sure to cut when the pickle is full and soft.

we did it here about 15 years ago,peas barley and grass,..never again..bales were riddled with rats regardless of how much poison we put done..had to be cut will grain is still soft and before peas break down..regardless of weather

Rats will go mad for baled whole crop - you'd need to get rid of them before well before baleing , not so bad with pit silage ,( I assume it's the walls )

good silage 75% dmd cut in may be alot simpler and near as good

have you costed the sowing of the arable silage?...shouldnt need adlib meal with 70+dmd silage to get around a kg of live weight pet day?

Apply for the tillage grant and plant peas and barley as a wholecrop. Problem with putting peas and barley in with grass is it can smother it. Really you need a hybrid to keep up with the grain crop. But hybrids only last three year. The seed is usually cheap so could use it and spray off and reseed in Autumn or next spring.

Ideally you would want to whole crop it. If your PH is low spread granlime, I spread some anyway on any reseeds.

On rats you need the poison down two weeks before the bales go in. This will kill any present. 3'' pipes( hollows the size of bale plastic rolls ) with blocks tied with wire inside. The rat come and feeds and goes back to where he came from to die.

Great feeding. If it was cattle that were 30 months plus I would use barley by itself. No need of protein for them. If you have peas in it feed straight barley with it to finish cattle

Energy crops will be a bigger issue than proteins. If I was growing anything Energy crops would have to be in the equation.

It's starch you are after for energy. Maize (think fine maize meal) Wheat, barley oats in that order from top to bottom.

Energy is the big issue. Worldwide plantings of the above are back due to fertiliser costs. They have replaced them with soya.

I'm going to try some wholecrop barley this year to cut the meal bill. Plan it to pit it and cover with second cut silage. This is is the first time trying it. Hope to get it in next week. Plan is to spread slurry, put a light coat of dung, plough,till, gran lime, seed with fertiliser spreader, chain harrow and roll. Aiming to undersow grass aswell after the pre emerge spray. Just wondering what do people think of that idea