Maize Silage Compaction and Storage
Best practices to store your silage
For optimal nutrition and longevity in storage it’s important to properly store your silage. Silage conservation conditions, anaerobiosis and low pH protect your silage from the development of moulds. Taking the time to prepare your silage storage area and observing these best practices can help protect your cattle feed.
Preparing the silo at harvest
- Survey grain maturity and water content as harvest time approaches – target 32 -35% dry matter
- Adapt production rate to silo settling, necessary for good forage conservation
- Clean harvesting equipment and silo storage location
- Adjust chopping size
- Fill silo rapidly (limit the aerobic phase)
- If there are weed control issues, raise the cut to limit incorporating of solanums, mercuries, amaranths and datura in the silo
- Lay a utility sheet along the walls to prevent entry of water and air
Storage of silage
- Ensure that there is a rapid and stable anaerobiosis (no air entry) – good sealing and good settling
- For difficult to settle forage (over 35 % dry matter), take the time to assist the settling – especially at the edges – and sufficiently fill the silo
- For good settling overinflate the tractor wheels and avoid wide tyres and low pressures
- Avoid incorporating earth or dust into the forage, which favours the development of butyric spores
- Remove the silage fluid
More about maize
- About Maize
- Physiology of maize
- Growing maize
- Pest and diseases
Opening the silo
- Adapt the width of the front opening to the herd’s consumption to allow a sufficient advance at the opening:
- 10 cm/day in autumn and winter
- 20 cm/day in spring and summer
- Do not give visibly mouldy silage to cattle
Optimizing Chopping Size for Conservation and Consumption
When chopping your silage, we have to balance two apparently contradictory objectives:
- Chop the silage finely enough to improve silo settling
- Leave the strands long enough for cows to chew
For the best feed aim for
- 80 % of particles less than 10 mm
- 10 to 15 % of particles between 10 and 20 mm
- Large pieces (>20 mm) are not recommended because they prevent settling and animals refuse to eat them – keep under 1%
- Grain shredding size should be adapted to maturity. The glassy starch in maize with over 35% dry matter needs to be broken up to optimise its digestion. This is the job of the grain crushers available on most silage harvesters.
During handling, silage unloaders and mixers will reduce the particle size further. The maize silage production process can lose a third of its medium-size particles in 5 minutes (mixing cutter).
Produce a maximum of particles between 8 and 10 mm at trough
Silage extraction:
Blade mixer Dry matter | Blade mixer Average length | Knife mixer Dry matter | Knife mixer Average length |
---|---|---|---|
28% | 12 mm | 28% | 12 mm |
32% | 10 mm | 32% | 12 mm |
>35% | 8 mm | >35% | 10 mm |
From one year to the next, maize silage is completely different because the growing conditions are different. To better adjust the ration of the animals, a sample should be taken at harvesting on the silage maize to analyse the silage quality.
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