Silage 2022

This year it's going to be very interesting what type of yields and are they late for anyone using slurry only. I had one meadow last year that had 14 bales/acre of dry well wilted stuff 1st cut then 7 bales/acre for second crop with a further 4 bales/acre 3rd crop. 1st cut was overgrown but this was due to it getting a double dose of fertilizer by mistake. I can't imagine getting anything near that output this year with no bag fertilizer

Will spread 3k gallons of cattle slurry this month and top up with 60 units in mid/late March

will cut before May 10th

that Maize silage on ear to the ground looks like savage feeding. That was some crops that they managed to grow last year. It was like something you'd see out in Iowa

Have the Sheep grazing it now, will have them off in 2 weeks and bring in for lambing and give slurry in late February.

Piggery near here is charging €48 per 1000 gals

Wait till they get full then they will change thier tune

Have found in recent years that 2000 gallons slurry plus N fertilizer is not enough for a good first cut. I checked silage mineral analysis figures and the potash is 2.5% and the P is 0.28%.

So 9 bales to the acre is taking off roughly 130kg of potash and 15kg of P per cut. So the slurry is only returning part of what was taken off to grow last year's crop.

Have used 1 to 1.5 bags 0:7:30 in late Feb/early March for a few years now and it has made a big difference. Can cut 10 days earlier for the same yield and quality is far better as a result. Feeding weanling and finishing cattle, the better animal performance and meal saving more than pays off

1 ton to 9 acres is over 2 bag/acre. You could grow silage with a Bag/acre you just have to give it a few extra weeks to bulk up. But quality would be good and weather dependent maybe better feeding than stuff made wet in the month of May

I wouldn't totally agree with that. High dry matter silage bests wet silage a lot of the time. It's not stem is the problem it is indigestible seed heads. Flowering heads are high in protein. It's silage after the 4-10 of June where heads are going to seed rather than flowering are the problem. Having said all that I aim to cut from the 22May on depending on getting a weather window capable of getting grass to 40ish DM

I know we all like quality. But nothing worse than wet silage. A bit stronger and dryer makes better silage.

we always try to go first week of May, usually get good weather then, if you wait till last week of May and it is wet then you could be into mid June before get a chance and then shure you only have chewing gum.

Would virtually never happen if you look for weather window with 20 days left in May. As it gets nearer the end of May you accept a lesser window. Got great stuff in a short window the end of May last year. Grass was down about 65 hours. 8 bales to the acre.