Silage testing

gerryirl · 31-01-2017 9:44pm #1

Got the silage tested.. whats the figures or headings I should be looking out for. The DMD is at 66.8 but the DM is way down at 17.5. Silage intake is down at 77.6. how bad is it or for the year we had is it n too bad.. I got it done last year but but all the % were in typical range

Mooooo · 31-01-2017 10:13pm

gerryirl wrote: »

Got the silage tested.. whats the figures or headings I should be looking out for. The DMD is at 66.8 but the DM is way down at 17.5. Silage intake is down at 77.6. how bad is it or for the year we had is it n too bad.. I got it done last year but but all the % were in typical range

DM is very low, pit I assume? Harvested in wet conditions? DMD also fairly low.? What are you feeding it too? Most stock will more than likely need a bit of ration with that unless overfat dry cows. At that they would also want something to up the energy before calving.
Aside from DM and DMD you should look at the protein and energy (ME). I assume it was one cut taken in June/July?
Ideal for silage ground it should be grazed and fertilised correctly and if you want high dmd and decent protein and energy or should be cut before the end of may before it starts heading out. It's leafy grass that makes the better silage. Wilted quickly also, 24 hours ideally as if down too long the protein will reduce. If you want quality 2 cuts would be better than one large one off the same ground. Better quality will reduce the amount of meal needed, and straw or hay depending on where you are can dilute it for dry cows if needs be.

gerryirl · 31-01-2017 10:22pm

its bales.. there was very little got dry up my way last summer. this was the best of what I got but it was still not dry baling it.Ya it was first cut in July. Was meant to be end of June but I was hoping a heat wave would come.. Its being feed to weanlings and stores. The weanlings are getting meal and a few of the stores are getting meal also, the meal is standing to the weanlings. I had one lad that wasnt eating it for a while. He was a long way behind the rest. He started eating it again and hes not too bad now

bogman_bass · 01-02-2017 10:49am

To be honest that isn't great stuff but I think you knew that already.
How soon do you hope to have stock out? At this stage it probably isn't worth upping meal if they are toying to be put out mid March

gerryirl · 01-02-2017 7:39pm

ah i know its not great . its actually better than I thought it would be. We had unreal summer up here in Roscommon. Ill not be letting anything out in March , Cant see it anyway. Best we got away with here was mid april. Im giving the weanlings 1.5kg of Aurivo 's weanling crunch. Bloody thing is €303 a tonne. m giving a few stores 3-4 kg a day of super beef. Ive more stores Im giving nothing to but might start in a month or so. They'll do well to hold there own . Should I up the meal do you think

Mooooo · 01-02-2017 7:47pm

gerryirl wrote: »

ah i know its not great . its actually better than I thought it would be. We had unreal summer up here in Roscommon. Ill not be letting anything out in March , Cant see it anyway. Best we got away with here was mid april. Im giving the weanlings 1.5kg of Aurivo 's weanling crunch. Bloody thing is €303 a tonne. m giving a few stores 3-4 kg a day of super beef. Ive more stores Im giving nothing to but might start in a month or so. They'll do well to hold there own . Should I up the meal do you think

May be no harm. Have you a bin or maybe a half tonne bags delivered,? could get 19% nut which would do the weanlings a good bit cheaper than that. We get a 19% heifer rearer nut in bulk, must check the price. On amount I guess judge on how they are going, perhaps give the wean lings a bit extra and stores that are not getting any a bit as well. 3 to 4 should be plenty for the stores, are they thriving ok?

gerryirl · 03-02-2017 8:18pm

I have 2 jfc bins. they hold 700 to 900 kgs of each. Ya weanlings are not falling away so far. Ya not sure what to do with the stores Im not feeding. if I start Im as well finish them.

primary 2 · 05-02-2017 6:55pm

if you had very poor quality silage,how many kgs of meal would you want to feed to hereford and limousine cattle out of freisan cows to gain .8 kgs of live weight gain a day?

Willfarman · 05-02-2017 7:54pm

primary 2 wrote: »

if you had very poor quality silage,how many kgs of meal would you want to feed to hereford and limousine cattle out of freisan cows to gain .8 kgs of live weight gain a day?

If it's poor then it would take 5 kilos.

primary 2 · 05-02-2017 8:46pm

Willfarman wrote: »

If it's poor then it would take 5 kilos.

if you gave these animals 2 kg of meal and had very good high quality silage what would they gain then a day?

Willfarman · 06-02-2017 10:19pm

primary 2 wrote: »

if you gave these animals 2 kg of meal and had very good high quality silage what would they gain then a day?

About the same if the silage was really good. But on middle of road 68dmd silage here and 2 kgs of 14% ration would have stores doing around .6 to .7.

Count Mondego · 07-02-2017 9:28pm

IAS Labs are some clowns. Sent them a silage sample nearly three weeks ago and still no results. Turns out they outsource the testing to UCD. Rang them three times in the last 48 hours and every time said they were emailing it right now. Won't be using them again.

pedigree 6 · 07-02-2017 11:37pm

Count Mondego wrote: »

IAS Labs are some clowns. Sent them a silage sample nearly three weeks ago and still no results. Turns out they outsource the testing to UCD. Rang them three times in the last 48 hours and every time said they were emailing it right now. Won't be using them again.

It's a pity you're not down here in the southeast. Glanbia had some silage/grass testing days around the branches with their mobile testing unit.

I think IAS are a victim of their own success now. Getting snowed under now with soil samples especially this time of year. Waiting on water sample results myself from them.

Poor form though.

johnnyw20 · 08-02-2017 1:05am

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It's a pity you're not down here in the southeast. Glanbia had some silage/grass testing days around the branches with their mobile testing unit.

I think IAS are a victim of their own success now. Getting snowed under now with soil samples especially this time of year. Waiting on water sample results myself from them.

Poor form though.

Any where else in the south east to soil test? Took 5 weeks for ias to send me the results and sent in 5 more samples over 2 weeks ago so god only knows when I get them back. Have 4 more fields to do still

freedominacup · 08-02-2017 1:46am

johnnyw20 wrote: »

Any where else in the south east to soil test? Took 5 weeks for ias to send me the results and sent in 5 more samples over 2 weeks ago so god only knows when I get them back. Have 4 more fields to do still

I was thinking it was slow atm.

Mooooo · 08-02-2017 4:40am

Count Mondego wrote: »

IAS Labs are some clowns. Sent them a silage sample nearly three weeks ago and still no results. Turns out they outsource the testing to UCD. Rang them three times in the last 48 hours and every time said they were emailing it right now. Won't be using them again.

Advisor sends ours to sciantec in the UK. Results would be back the same week most times

pedigree 6 · 08-02-2017 8:23am

johnnyw20 wrote: »

Any where else in the south east to soil test? Took 5 weeks for ias to send me the results and sent in 5 more samples over 2 weeks ago so god only knows when I get them back. Have 4 more fields to do still

I was enquiring about soil samples and they told me it would be 5 - 6 weeks before I'd have the results.
Seemingly they have 2 machines and one is broken down atm.
But at least they were straight up in telling me.

It's going to take 5 weeks to test my water sample.
But if there were coliforms present they'd let you know the next day but the minerals would take 5 weeks.

Willfarman · 08-02-2017 8:43am

johnnyw20 wrote: »

Any where else in the south east to soil test? Took 5 weeks for ias to send me the results and sent in 5 more samples over 2 weeks ago so god only knows when I get them back. Have 4 more fields to do still

A place in bagnalstown.

Username John · 08-02-2017 10:18am

johnnyw20 wrote: »

Any where else in the south east to soil test? Took 5 weeks for ias to send me the results and sent in 5 more samples over 2 weeks ago so god only knows when I get them back. Have 4 more fields to do still

http://www.fba-labs.com

Not sure how quick they are - you'd want to ring em to make sure first. Sent samples in last summer and I think it was 2 week turn around...

johnnyw20 · 08-02-2017 10:26am

Username John wrote: »

http://www.fba-labs.com

Not sure how quick they are - you'd want to ring em to make sure first. Sent samples in last summer and I think it was 2 week turn around...

They look top class. Might try them

pedigree 6 · 08-02-2017 10:43am

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It's going to take 5 weeks to test my water sample.
But if there were coliforms present they'd let you know the next day but the minerals would take 5 weeks.

Actually scrap that, i got the result this morning in the post and I brought in the sample on Monday last week.

pedigree 6 · 08-02-2017 10:44am

Willfarman wrote: »

A place in bagnalstown.

That's IAS.

Muckit · 08-02-2017 1:29pm

Count Mondego wrote: »

IAS Labs are some clowns. Sent them a silage sample nearly three weeks ago and still no results. Turns out they outsource the testing to UCD. Rang them three times in the last 48 hours and every time said they were emailing it right now. Won't be using them again.

Snap. Got my results yesterday. Was wondering what the delay was with mine and not happy with them. Sample spent longer in an post than lab by sounds of it. They weren't slow in asking for my credit card number though the day they received sample.

Count Mondego · 08-02-2017 2:21pm

Muckit wrote: »

Snap. Got my results yesterday. Was wondering what the delay was with mine and not happy with them. Sample spent longer in an post than lab by sounds of it. They weren't slow in asking for my credit card number though the day they received sample.

Well bollocks. Looks like too much nitrogen in it, stopped it fermentating properly.

Count Mondego · 08-02-2017 2:24pm

Results.

Iron and aluminum levels off the charts too in the mineral analysis. Fu#k all I can do about that.

pedigree 6 · 08-02-2017 6:53pm

Count Mondego wrote: »

Well bollocks. Looks like too much nitrogen in it, stopped it fermentating properly.

Looking at the report, that must be dark smelly butyric acid silage.

With that DM% it probably wasn't tedded out either or was cut wet.
Tedding out would have brought down the ammonia and increased the DM% and increased the sugar%.
But as everything it depends on what weather you had.

Otherwise follow the 2units of N/ac used per day from spreading, for a rough guide to see when it's used up.

The high aluminium and iron are the result of low soil pH and if that's corrected should go down.

Here's a good guide that I have bookmarked for myself.
http://beefandlamb.ahdb.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Manual-5-makinggrasssilageforbetterreturns070211.pdf

Count Mondego · 08-02-2017 11:32pm

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Looking at the report, that must be dark smelly butyric acid silage.

The high aluminium and iron are the result of low soil pH and if that's corrected should go down.

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It's not that bad actually, they're eating every bit of it and while it's not bright yellow, it's still yellow. Don't have that sharp silage smell though.

Spread around 90 units of can and it had at least 60 days from spreading to harvesting, which is an average of 1.5 usage a day. That shouldn't have been an issue I would have thought.

Making pit silage you don't get a chance to wilt as the harvester comes after the mower.

Not sure about the Iron and Aluminum comment as the soil is very high PH at 7+ on the whole farm.

The lab tech said that 90 units was too much to put out, and stick with 75-80. Would have thought that was on the low side?
Thanks for the link, will have a look.

charolais0153 · 08-02-2017 11:41pm

Count Mondego wrote: »

It's not that bad actually, they're eating every bit of it and while it's not bright yellow, it's still yellow. Don't have that sharp silage smell though.

Spread around 90 units of can and it had at least 60 days from spreading to harvesting, which is an average of 1.5 usage a day. That shouldn't have been an issue I would have thought.

Making pit silage you don't get a chance to wilt as the harvester comes after the mower.

Not sure about the Iron and Aluminum comment as the soil is very high PH at 7+ on the whole farm.

The lab tech said that 90 units was too much to put out, and stick with 75-80. Would have thought that was on the low side?
Thanks for the link, will have a look.

90 + inotson nwer let's and <80 on older ground I think

pedigree 6 · 08-02-2017 11:46pm

Count Mondego wrote: »

It's not that bad actually, they're eating every bit of it and while it's not bright yellow, it's still yellow. Don't have that sharp silage smell though.

Spread around 90 units of can and it had at least 60 days from spreading to harvesting, which is an average of 1.5 usage a day. That shouldn't have been an issue I would have thought.

Making pit silage you don't get a chance to wilt as the harvester comes after the mower.

Not sure about the Iron and Aluminum comment as the soil is very high PH at 7+ on the whole farm.

The lab tech said that 90 units was too much to put out, and stick with 75-80. Would have thought that was on the low side?
Thanks for the link, will have a look.

Well I'm just stumped now??

The only thing you'd have to insist with the contractor to cut it dry and give a days wilt.

90 units of N wouldn't be high unless it was 2nd cut and there was some N left from the 1st cut.

Is it high molybdenum land perhaps?

Count Mondego · 09-02-2017 12:08am

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Well I'm just stumped now??

The only thing you'd have to insist with the contractor to cut it dry and give a days wilt.

90 units of N wouldn't be high unless it was 2nd cut and there was some N left from the 1st cut.

Is it high molybdenum land perhaps?

Ya, high moly alright and it was first cut. Another problems is that the land is all in one block and I think the loader fella is getting swamped with silage coming in too quick. He's probably not getting enough time to compact the sides of the pit. Centre is fine but the sides are soft enough and can start to heat after being exposed, no side walls either. Might tell him to drop a trailer this year to give him more of a chance.

Silage testing

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