Selling silage - cost of making

Username John

Hello,

I see there are a few discussions re selling a crop of silage, I wanted to pick peoples brains on this.

What are the costs for selling silage? I know people say they get 100 - 120euro / acre for silage. But what are the costs of producing this?

I mean fertiliser is the obvious one - how much should go on silage ground per acre? Whats the approx cost of this?
What about lime? Over time, how much lime will be taken out of the ground in the grass? (or, I suppose I should ask should the ground pH be rasied by selling silage every year) So whats this cost over a few years...

If there is clover in the sward, will silage damage this over time? So is this something else which should be factored in over a few years?

I'm looking at maybe doing this next year, so am interested to see what the cost of silage production really is.

Thanks for all replies.

tommylimerick

that s a difficult question to answer
if you mean for someone to take 2 or 3 cuts per year
then i would guess you might need to reseed once every
10 years maybe more often however if you only
take one cut per year it should not make a big difference
we take a single cut of silage off the same ground every year
and have never spread any lime in the last 15 years nor has it gotten any slurry
the crop is maybe a week or two later than others but
not a big deal if you ask me..
so maybe you could put 20 euro - 30 euro a year
towards reseeding lime dyke maintenance etc..
plus i think you still have to have public liability insurance
and you are 50% responsible for fencing as far as i know
hoope this helps......
sorry i haven t answered your question

Username John

tommylimerick wrote: »

that s a difficult question to answer
if you mean for someone to take 2 or 3 cuts per year
then i would guess you might need to reseed once every
10 years maybe more often however if you only
take one cut per year it should not make a big difference
we take a single cut of silage off the same ground every year
and have never spread any lime in the last 15 years nor has it gotten any slurry
the crop is maybe a week or two later than others but
not a big deal if you ask me..
so maybe you could put 20 euro - 30 euro a year
towards reseeding lime dyke maintenance etc..
plus i think you still have to have public liability insurance
and you are 50% responsible for fencing as far as i know
hoope this helps......
sorry i haven t answered your question

Not at all Tommy, useful info. Cheers.