Baling wholecrop ?

bikes

Im thinking of changing my beef farm to organic and with the price of organic meal,I have decided to grow some barley and wholecrop it. I want some advice on growing it and baling it.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Difficult to do. You would want a hell of a lot of wrap to prevent the straw from puncturing the wrap and letting in air. And that's before the rats find out whats in the bales:(

The ideal would be to pit it and cover with some late grass silage, less trouble with rats also doing it that way.

bikes

Have an old pit , but have no run off tank and I have my own baler. I was told to leave the bales in lines about a foot away from each other the way the rats have no cover.

cjpm

bikes wrote: »

Have an old pit , but have no run off tank and I have my own baler. I was told to leave the bales in lines about a foot away from each other the way the rats have no cover.

Apart from the cover of darkness!

mahoney_j

First year with wholecrop here.absoutely super buffer with grass.pitted mine and bused preservative and sealed extremely well with pylothene ,tyres and sand ,no grass on top and no waste yet.dont think I'd bale it firstly you'll have to mow it and then maby rake it which will lead to a lot of grain loss secondly you'll have to use a lot of plastic and even at that the straw could puncture it leading to losses and then rats munching their way in.also when baling you won't crack the grain which means you have to be really on the money with your moisture content at cutting as if it's too dry ainmals won't be able to digest the grain and a lot of it will pass through their system and out their rear end

Greengrass1

We baled tritcal and Italian before
great feed if the rats hadn't of destroyed it all

Farmer Pudsey

Baled wholecrop is not much use for fattening. Too much straw. Pitting it allows it to be cut by a header(takes grain and 6'' of straw). Generall lads that bale it have grass and or peas as well. Did Grass/peas/Barley for a few years. Baled it. You really needed weather when you cut it(week to 10 day window) wilted it for 24-48 hours and baled. If I had to cut and bale straight away I found I had a mountain of bales(20+/acre) and bales did not hold long after opening after 48 hours it was too sour for cattle to eat.

Rats are an issue unless you keep poison out. You had to put it out a week to 10 day before harvesting and keep it out all winter. (block with wire trought them tied into tubes plastic silage cores are ideal). Another issue is if barley and peas get too strong you will kill the grass. You will not have a huge crop of barley unless you use peas as well to provide N. However peas will increase protein and not idea for finishing.

I think it might be more productive to produce a top quality silage to minimise grain need and then to feed straight Barley. if you can produce a silage crop at 80ish DMD you might only feed 4-5kgs of barley to finish AA or HE cattle.