Fodder Crisis

Say my name

Timmaay wrote: »

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/video-all-systems-go-with-silage-2019-at-dublin-airport/

Oh thank god, just in time the lads are mowing the airport to avert another fodder crisis!

Actual footage of DAA security at the gates.

https://youtu.be/ye8KXGa76R8

greysides

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Close the thread please mods.

Fodder crisis has shrunk from 10 hours to 8 hours deficit...

Just close it!

Waiting to do so and would love to do it.

But, at the moment it's the only thing keeping the good weather going.

Markcheese

grassroot1 wrote: »

While it would be difficult to keep an extra 100% of our silage requirements we probably do need a buffer stock to future proof our systems
Easier done for some than others.

If conserving fodder for a once in a generation type event, how would you go about it.?
You'd need some size of a barn or hashed, and I can't imagine too many lads building a silage slab big enough for 12 months of feed, that's apart from being able to open the pit every few years to add to it... (face it, no one's going to be able to set aside 12 months of fodder in 1 year, and if you're setting aside for a 1 in 50 year event you'll probably be setting aside fodder over 50 years)

jaymla627

grassroot1 wrote: »

While it would be difficult to keep an extra 100% of our silage requirements we probably do need a buffer stock to future proof our systems
Easier done for some than others.

A lot cheaper ways to ensure a fooder reserve then cutting huge averages of land for silage in multiple cuts( have the t-shirt got) instead of going for 3rd and 4 th cuts here this year have a 30 ton bin going in with a auger system for filling diet feeder, works out cheaper then storing massive amounts of silage and your not tying up huge cash reserves either, will be buying in beet as well to mix through tmr, land rental values make it unviable to rent half the parish and cut 100’s of acreas of silage year in year out, and with grain markets on the floor its even worse value for money

Gawddawggonnit

1 year = 365 days.
1 generation = 25 years.

2012/2013 = fodder crisis!
2018 = fodder crisis!
By my reckoning that’s two fodder crises in 5 years?

Maybe I’m just thick, but I distinctly remember sending thousands of tons of fodder to Ireland in ‘13 and again in ‘18??

Wtf came up with once in 50 years?

Maybe I’m just too far away to listen,and believe, the bullsh1t being spouted by the crises deniers??

Gawddawggonnit

jaymla627 wrote: »

A lot cheaper ways to ensure a fooder reserve then cutting huge averages of land for silage in multiple cuts( have the t-shirt got) instead of going for 3rd and 4 th cuts here this year have a 30 ton bin going in with a auger system for filling diet feeder, works out cheaper then storing massive amounts of silage and your not tying up huge cash reserves either, will be buying in beet as well to mix through tmr, land rental values make it unviable to rent half the parish and cut 100’s of acreas of silage year in year out, and with grain markets on the floor its even worse value for money

Native Irish grains?
Or gmo grains imported from the Americas?

jaymla627

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Native Irish grains?
Or gmo grains imported from the Americas?

40-50% Irish oats/barley/peas/beans with maize/hulls/soya bean/beet-pulp making up the remainder, depending on supplies can be very hard to even get the mill to put oats/beans/peas in the mix

ganmo

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

1 year = 365 days.
1 generation = 25 years.

2012/2013 = fodder crisis!
2018 = fodder crisis!
By my reckoning that’s two fodder crises in 5 years?

Maybe I’m just thick, but I distinctly remember sending thousands of tons of fodder to Ireland in ‘13 and again in ‘18??

Wtf came up with once in 50 years?

Maybe I’m just too far away to listen,and believe, the bullsh1t being spouted by the crises deniers??

never see a 100/1 shot horse win?
'once in a generation' is a way of saying the odds of it happening so using your figures would be 25/1

Timmaay

Markcheese wrote: »

If conserving fodder for a once in a generation type event, how would you go about it.?
You'd need some size of a barn or hashed, and I can't imagine too many lads building a silage slab big enough for 12 months of feed, that's apart from being able to open the pit every few years to add to it... (face it, no one's going to be able to set aside 12 months of fodder in 1 year, and if you're setting aside for a 1 in 50 year event you'll probably be setting aside fodder over 50 years)

A full years silage is obviously nuts, however keeping over some silage one year to the next definely makes sense, we keep at least a month's worth of pit silage across most years, we have 3 different pits, so simply hold across a different pit each year. I'm building a new silage slab in the next year to replace one of these pits, and I'll have access to both sides of it, which will let me juggle even further.

And the single biggest problem last year I think was alot of farmers were far too complacent about finding alternative forms of winter feed when the drought hit, I'll put my hands up here as being guilty for one, my dad was annoying me to buy a standing crop of 1st cut in May because the pits were empty, and I decided not to, I then also decided not to bother with any whole crop in July, which I've said before is one of the most versatile options to help with a fodder crisis, no need to commit to it in April like with maize/beet/1st cut grass silage, instead you simply pickup the phone to your local tillage farmer in mid July and 10days later you hopefully have a pit full of fodder for in around 16 to 20c/kgdm.

Mooooo

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

1 year = 365 days.
1 generation = 25 years.

2012/2013 = fodder crisis!
2018 = fodder crisis!
By my reckoning that’s two fodder crises in 5 years?

Maybe I’m just thick, but I distinctly remember sending thousands of tons of fodder to Ireland in ‘13 and again in ‘18??

Wtf came up with once in 50 years?

Maybe I’m just too far away to listen,and believe, the bullsh1t being spouted by the crises deniers??

They were caused by two different events, and effected different parts of the country. In 13 lads in the east got in fine as the wet summer of 12 didn't effect them as much as those of us in wet ground or in the west whereas last year the drought effected them more and was compounded by snow and other events prior to that. I got caught in 13 by a combination of being restricted with tb and wet ground was a disaster from june 12 on. Sold 100 bales last spring and and have a pit of maize left over this spring. Once the lesson is taken on board hopefully there will be less exposure. Double wrapped every bale after 13 and always erred on the side of caution. Have 3 meal bins up as well to stretch things earlier if needed

Gawddawggonnit

ganmo wrote: »

never see a 100/1 shot horse win?
'once in a generation' is a way of saying the odds of it happening so using your figures would be 25/1

By my (reality) figures it’d be 5/2 or 2.5/1

Each year that passes without a fodder crisis I’d strongly advise you to substantially tighten those odds...
JP or Shark would skin you on those odds, that’s if you were willing to stand over them.

Gawddawggonnit

Tim & Moo.
There’s loads of different reasons why individuals got into bother in ‘13 and ‘18.
Because ye both know what needs to be done ye won’t get into bother again.

What gets on my wick are the deniers.
There’s posters on here that actually believe that the crises never happened! Ffs.

Plenty posters on here we’re sending me private messages trying to source fodder. I even organized to send back 7 diet feeders back last year!
Diet feeders FFS!!??

ganmo

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

By my (reality) figures it’d be 5/2 or 2.5/1

Each year that passes without a fodder crisis I’d strongly advise you to substantially tighten those odds...
JP or Shark would skin you on those odds, that’s if you were willing to stand over them.

you're confusing reality with probability :P

that would be if it was caused by the same event
2 separate causes 25/1 + 25/1 = 25/2 or 12.5/1
not sure how you'd account to spread it over 5 years

if it was the same cause the + would turn into a x

Donald Trump

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

By my (reality) figures it’d be 5/2 or 2.5/1

Each year that passes without a fodder crisis I’d strongly advise you to substantially tighten those odds...
JP or Shark would skin you on those odds, that’s if you were willing to stand over them.

If you want to talk percentages, I'll give you the percentages. Assuming that each year is independent (which is probably not really statistically true as you will likely see clustering of crises like that which would up the probabilities of more than one crisis in the below). Numbers are rounded to one decimal.

Now suppose that the probability that any given year there is a one-in-twentyfive chance you will have a crisis. That means that you will expect 1 crisis every 25 years on average.

Under those assumptions, then in any 25 year period:
There is a 36% chance you will have 0
37.5% chance you will see 1
26.4% chance you will see two or more.

In any given 10 year period that changes to
0: 66.5%
1: 27.7%
2+: 5.8%


In a 7 year period: (2012 + 2013 + 2014 + 2015 + 2016 + 2017 + 2018)
0: 75.1%
1: 21.9%
2+: 2.9%


In any given 15 year period then there is still about a 12% chance that you would see 2 or more. Assuming a 1/25 chance of seeing one in any given year.

Markcheese

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

1 year = 365 days.
1 generation = 25 years.

2012/2013 = fodder crisis!
2018 = fodder crisis!
By my reckoning that’s two fodder crises in 5 years?

Maybe I’m just thick, but I distinctly remember sending thousands of tons of fodder to Ireland in ‘13 and again in ‘18??

Wtf came up with once in 50 years?

Maybe I’m just too far away to listen,and believe, the bullsh1t being spouted by the crises deniers??

I think that was just me saying once in 50 years,
I didn't mean we only got poor weather once in 50 years, but that you'd probably only need a full year's worth of extra feed every 50 years or so,
(might be 3 or 4 poor years in a row when little to no silage could be made,due to drought or rain),
It might only be 2 or 3 years in 10 that you'd get to put aside extra feed, and there'd be times you'd need extra winter (or even summer feed) in the course of a decade...

GrasstoMilk

We got through here but only because of meal and straw.
We've dropped our sr this year to 2.2 from 2.7 last year and cant see us going past 2.4 in the near future unless we get more land on the MP.
weve sowed 10 acres of maize with the contractor again even though we dont really need it in the hope of building a reserve. Itll be cheaper than having to go feeding a heap of meal if for some reason we cabt make enough silage sone year..

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/bank-6-000-of-silage-to-save-10-000-teagasc-457493

Donald Trump

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

We got through here but only because of meal and straw.
We've dropped our sr this year to 2.2 from 2.7 last year and cant see us going past 2.4 in the near future unless we get more land on the MP.
weve sowed 10 acres of maize with the contractor again even though we dont really need it in the hope of building a reserve. Itll be cheaper than having to go feeding a heap of meal if for some reason we cabt make enough silage sone year..

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/bank-6-000-of-silage-to-save-10-000-teagasc-457493

What's the yield like for Maize etc?




At what stage would you go with Maize rather than renting land for silage? What will you get off 10 acres of grass compared to X acres of silage?




What do you do with it? Just precision chop and into the pit? Or with one of those special harvesters?





I see a lot of people mentioning wholecrop now. I remember the oul' fella putting a barley (and maybe pea) mix in with reseeding grass about 20 years ago and then baling and wrapping it. Seemed like good feeding....but the problem was that rats riddles the bales in the heap!

Timmaay

Donald Trump wrote: »

What's the yield like for Maize etc?

At what stage would you go with Maize rather than renting land for silage? What will you get off 10 acres of grass compared to X acres of silage?

What do you do with it? Just precision chop and into the pit? Or with one of those special harvesters?

I see a lot of people mentioning wholecrop now. I remember the oul' fella putting a barley (and maybe pea) mix in with reseeding grass about 20 years ago and then baling and wrapping it. Seemed like good feeding....but the problem was that rats riddles the bales in the heap!

16tons/ha dry is about as good a yeild as you could expect on average (which is just over 20tons/ac wet at 30dm). 53e/ton wet is the typical contractor rate this year into your pit, so let's call that 16c/kgdm. The thing you gotta be really careful about here is the cutting date of the crop, it favours the tillage lad to cut early when it's greener and therefore wetter, and weights heavier, however the dm of the crop will be lower, so you the buyer will lose out. The other thing to be careful is that he doesnt put in a maize crop that is heavy in bulk/steam, but low in quality (starch). The only way to avoid this is get it tested when it arrives in your pit and have a pre arranged agreement on the price based on starch/dm.

Anyways looking at grass silage, let's call it 100e rent, 80e fert/spray etc, and 120e harvesting (more if its a long draw and several trailers), that's 300e/ac, let's call it a good crop and 6tonDM/ha (would want to be growing 10weeks), that works out at 12.5c/kgdm, however it's gonna be average quality, maybe 65dmd, I'm not sure about ufls but the maize at 16c would probably come in similar value (cows on maize, even average maize will always always do better than on grass silage).

Your alternative with the grass silage is go for say a 2cut system, the quality will be a hell of alot higher (high 70s dmd), but you have double the harvest costs.

That's all talking about buying in, for growing it yourself, the massive difference is with maize you sow it in April, ignore it until its harvested in Oct. If you wanna do the same thing with grass silage you would be looking at a 2cut system, with 2harvests and alot more work (however you can get grazing on the grass also), let's call it 6tdm/ha 1st cut and 4tdm/ha 2nd cut, so much better yeild out of the maize for the same ground. Cost wise home grown maize can work out as cheap as 10c/kgdm (without a land charge), whereas any sort of 2cut system with them above yeilds will be more like 13c/kgdm (again without the land charge).

However we haven't even mentioned location yet, maize will always win by a long margin in a nice dry field in the south east where we rarely even bother putting out fert for say an August 2nd cut of grass for fear of a drought, but totally different story out west in a poor field, where maize could be a very expensive mistake and total failure.

Keepgrowing

If I had feed to sell I’d be talking up the likely hood of a crisis.

Gawddawggonnit

If, by any chance, there’s a fodder crisis for a few minutes, I decided to make a few of these things...drop a pm, as usual.

Never wrestle with pigs

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

If, by any chance, there’s a fodder crisis for a few minutes, I decided to make a few of these things...drop a pm, as usual.

Lol, there will be. You should organise a big shed over here to sell them out of in the Midlands.

whelan2

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Lol, there will be. You should organise a big shed over here to sell them out of in the Midlands.

Could be handy during drought season

White Clover

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

If, by any chance, there’s a fodder crisis for a few minutes, I decided to make a few of these things...drop a pm, as usual.

Dawg, if that was my field, should I be getting rid of the mower or the driver?

Reggie.

White Clover wrote: »

Dawg, if that was my field, should I be getting rid of the mower or the driver?

Bet it was the claas mowers he used. Hes not impressed with them

Say my name

Reggie. wrote: »

Bet it was the claas mowers he used. Hes not impressed with them

It's not grass though.

Lucerne more like. You have to leave a bit of height.

Gawddawggonnit

White Clover wrote: »

Dawg, if that was my field, should I be getting rid of the mower or the driver?

Nothing too wrong with either man or mower.
It’s a mix of peas and Italian ryegrass that got badly lodged. The ryegrass is for seed and should be combined in July. Thus it had to be mown at 10cm.

Reggie.

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Nothing too wrong with either man or mower.
It’s a mix of peas and Italian ryegrass that got badly lodged. The ryegrass is for seed and should be combined in July. Thus it had to be mown at 10cm.

Bet you mowed it so.

White Clover

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Nothing too wrong with either man or mower.
It’s a mix of peas and Italian ryegrass that got badly lodged. The ryegrass is for seed and should be combined in July. Thus it had to be mown at 10cm.

Interesting, I presume you had skids under the mower to keep it up that much?

Gawddawggonnit

Reggie. wrote: »

Bet you mowed it so.

Nope.
Nice try though.

Gawddawggonnit

White Clover wrote: »

Interesting, I presume you had skids under the mower to keep it up that much?

Mounted mowers so just lengthening the toplink does the trick.

I’m very pleased with that crop. It was direct drilled into wheat stubble at 100kg/ha of home saved pea seed, and 15kg/ha of ryegrass seed costing €45/ha. No fertilizer or weed spray.
Yielded 29 bales per hectare weighing 670kg at about 33%dm.
Offers? .