May silage vs June silage - Quality

jimmy G M

Ok, so for best quality high DMD silage we need to be cutting in mid to late May when crop is at leafy stage and before it starts to head out?

However, if as in a year like this growth is slow and closing up is later resulting in a later harvesting date, how much of a hit in quality are we taking vs earlier silage? Say cutting last week of June/first week of July rather than 4-5 weeks earlier?

Assume that fields are similarly well grazed before closing, similarly manured and cut timely & wilted to similar standards (ie purely down to the grass)

Or to put it another way, can second cut silage be of similar quality to first cut assuming similar cutting & wilting conditions.

Hopefully some of the grass growing wizards on here can help? Thx.

Timmaay

Grass heads out from mid May onwards no matter what, (the actual heading out date depends on what part of the country you are in and the grass varieties present), but there is utterly no avoiding it, and once grass heads out the dmd crashes through the ground. What the answer is for a year like this is for people only closing ground now for their normal 1st cut I don't know, all I know is the stuff I was lucky enough to close up in late March will definitely be cut mid May, and any other silage on the grazing block here will be cut as excess paddocks, at around 3bales/acre, or well before it gets a chance to head out. I'll be buying in a 15acres field of silage that I cut late may last 2yrs, but it won't be closed up for another 2wks, I'm still unsure what to do with it, but it will be most lightly left until late June and used only as drycow feed for cows that have plenty enough condition on next winter.

Milked out

jimmy G M wrote: »

Ok, so for best quality high DMD silage we need to be cutting in mid to late May when crop is at leafy stage and before it starts to head out?

However, if as in a year like this growth is slow and closing up is later resulting in a later harvesting date, how much of a hit in quality are we taking vs earlier silage? Say cutting last week of June/first week of July rather than 4-5 weeks earlier?

Assume that fields are similarly well grazed before closing, similarly manured and cut timely & wilted to similar standards (ie purely down to the grass)

Or to put it another way, can second cut silage be of similar quality to first cut assuming similar cutting & wilting conditions.

Hopefully some of the grass growing wizards on here can help? Thx.

What your talking about cutting at end of June is still first cut, second cut would be a crop from.a field that was previously cut. Only solution this year is to take a light cut before end of may and fertilise for a second cut them and take that then in mid to the end of July. Should end up with better quality and similar or more volume over one cut taken in the start of July or end of June. Regrowth should be faster after both cuts as well so you may only lose a week or two grazing over the single cut system

WheatenBriar

I closed march 22nd,thats when the fert was put out,it rained that evening and the following day so happy with that
Grass only took off in it for the last fortnight but we're now facing into at least 2 weeks of single digit maxes and night frosts meaning not much growth untill mid may again
If cutting grazed silage ground in mid may,its going to be the most expensive small crop ever this year methinks

Muckit

Jimmy my good man .Have faith in yourself. You're not a half bad farmer Go with your gut. No point lads talking about ideals. This is far from an ideal year. It's a late spring and there's not a damn thing you or me or anyone else for that matter can do about it. And it will be you that'll be paying the contractor bill!!

jaymla627

WheatenBriar wrote: »

I closed march 22nd,thats when the fert was put out,it rained that evening and the following day so happy with that
Grass only took off in it for the last fortnight but we're now facing into at least 2 weeks of single digit maxes and night frosts meaning not much growth untill mid may again
If cutting grazed silage ground in mid may,its going to be the most expensive small crop ever this year methinks

Just in from walking whole farm nice 2000 plus covers on ground held up for silage, first cut will be done here the middle of may If the weather is right...
Yields might be back but would rather have a bank of 200 top quality bales, then 400 plus bales of dry cow feed if I delay cutting till June, a lot of dairy guys learned hard lessons this spring with diabolical milk protein levels cause they're silage wasn't up to scratch

mahoney_j

jaymla627 wrote: »

Just in from walking whole farm nice 2000 plus covers on ground held up for silage, first cut will be done here the middle of may If the weather is right...
Yields might be back but would rather have a bank of 200 top quality bales, then 400 plus bales of dry cow feed if I delay cutting till June, a lot of dairy guys learned hard lessons this spring with diabolical milk protein levels cause they're silage wasn't up to scratch

Same as here ,quality always trumps quantity ,straw can be added to good quality silage to bulk it up but not crap silage

freedominacup

mahoney_j wrote: »

Same as here ,quality always trumps quantity ,straw can be added to good quality silage to bulk it up but not crap silage

You can't add enough meal to crap silage to get performance from it. Straw is cheap.

jimmy G M

Thx for responses lads. Not too badly fixed here, have 10 acres closed up this past 3 weeks, just with the poor growth there's not as much closed up as we would like at this stage. All cattle out, some since mid march and 300 bales to carry forward to next winter. Need to cut another c 350 this summer as use about 550 over the winter.

So need to close another 25-30 acres asap. If this ground is well ate before closing and is cut at max 8 weeks growth, would this silage be of comparable quality to early silage (assuming comparable harvesting conditions). In other words does grass quality taper off rapidly after late May regardless of whether it has gone to seed or not?

Would like to focus more on getting quality over quantity here as moving away from suckler cows and keeping more weanlings over the winter.

Milked out

Once you go past the end of may grass will head out and what was leafy grass will turn stemmy, so quality will drop fast. I think it's a couple of dmd points for every week after seed head appearing. If it's weanlings your going to feed you need high protein high dmd silage so cutting first cut before end of may is important. If you take a second cut 5 or 6 weeks later you will have good quality silage and seeing as it's bales it won't cost a while pile extra over one heavy poor crop as you may get a similar number of bales just better quality. Good silage isn't a heavy crop it's leafy grass to the base. Once the N time is up and you see a 5th leaf without seed head appearing cut away