Silage success! You’re just ten steps away…

…from your best corn silage harvest ever.                

Water is tight in the west, there’s gallons of it in the midwest and east, and lots of hungry cows from here to there. Margins demand you keep costs down, and  (don’t you get tired of hearing this?) be more efficient.

The good news is that there are ways to do just that, and that knowledge is power. A few years ago we came up with a checklist to take you from pre-harvest through putting that last gravel bag or tire on your bunker or silage pile.

1. Insist on safety. Send your people home safely to their families. SAFE SILAGE = PROFITABLE SILAGE!

2. Evaluate last year’s forage, identify opportunities to do better.

3. Meet with your nutritionist or advisor.

• Estimate tonnage per field – this helps in ordering inoculant, covering, estimating fill rates, packing equipment needed, personnel.
• Order fields by probable maturity and dry matter.
• Decide target moisture content, chop length, processing, packing density goals, inoculants and covering.
• Tour the storage area, decide on pile/bunker area sizes. Figure how to use land for drive over piles. Get rid of old equipment and weeds to make room.

4. If you hire it out, meet with chopping and/or  covering contractors to discuss harvest timing, inoculant procedure,  fill rate expectations, extra equipment needed especially for packing. If you chop and/or cover yourself, meet with the crew and discuss the same.

5. Prepare equipment, pads, tires or gravel bags.

6. Order inoculant and pile or bunker covering.

7. Host a safety meeting for all employees, warn neighbors of trucks and increased traffic.

8. Monitor dry matter, adjust field order and inoculant choice as needed.

9. Seal piles as soon as possible, leaving enough skirt in the covering to seal the edges with gravel bags.

10. Practice safe, smart face management after opening the pile.

More to come!

Of course, this is a simple plan and you will have questions! Please call us at 559-779-5961 or email ronkuber@gmail.com for a more personalized plan. Ron, Joe and Eddie, backed by Dr. Keith Bolsen and other silage scientists, are happy to help.