If rc was blocked out of the pit would cows eat the rc blocks before anything else .I hate diet feeders
Second cut was 5 bales per acre cut with mower conditioner 4 pm on Tuesday, raked early Thursday and baled at 5pm on Thursday. First cut was cut last week in May. Super stuff.
First still got similar treatment. Both got an additive. Cattle came out in super condition last spring and I class this year's silage as better.
I’d love to see an analysis of that silage. There’s no way silage at 40+ dm can be in the 70’s for dmd. The dmd wilts out of the grass along with the water. To have silage in the 70’s for dmd it needs to be baled within 24-36 hours of mowing. You won’t have 40+ dm in that time frame unless it was in the scorching weather last week.
I work on the assumption that beef is not compatible with cost. I can manage with a two cut silage system. One in late May and I cut second cut this week. Probably a week to 10 earlier that I would have preferred, however Galway races next week and it can be hard to get a contractor. Getting rain tonight so I was spreading ordinary Urea on it today and a coolant hose burst on the tractor. I had 18-6-12 to go on it as well so will fix it tomorrow and spread away.
I averaged 13.5 bales per acre over the two cuts. Silage is 40%+DM and probably early 70's DMD. It's costing about 35-36/ bale.
I do it even chaper!
I’ve a few sh1tholes too, steep bits, very shallow land etc, that’s been in Italian for 15yrs, never reseeded, just let it go to seed and let stock onto it after plenty rain. Works fine.
I still hate ryegrass mind.
A lot of middling farmers (like myself) overseeds the silage fields with a few bags of Italian. Fields with drains and rocks and boggy patches and it works away fine. I think myself, Italian is very underrated, you will have a nice cut every six weeks.
What % protein is your perennial ryegrass silage, on average?
What price is soya?
You needn’t lose one cut if you DD at the right time.
I honestly can’t see why ye would bother growing any RC. If your system is to keep cattle ticking over in the winter, any old bulky cut of grass would do. Anyhow it’s soooo much easier to fire out a bag of fertilizer than to be ‘minding’ a crop that needs a little tlc.
RC probably has a place in organic farms that are actually trying to make a living out of the farm. Those farms need to be entirely self sufficient, ie, no bought in feed etc, I don’t think that one can farm any other way in organic.
You lose economy of scale. To do a mixed system you would need 150+ acres. It's not really viable on sub 100 acres.
Rye is a very expensive seed in Ireland. I used it about 10+ years ago and it was 50% dearer than oats.
Most lads in Ireland want a composite feed. Protein is not the be all and end all. Ya if you are complementing it with a grain yes. On a cheap grassland system it's hard to beat straight grass silage
I just cannot see using a plant that has to be replanted every 3-4 years making much of a saving. Replanting means you lose one cut in that year. If you let it run into four years the crop tends to be very poor.
I have perennial ryegrass swards for silage that are 6-10years old and still cropping ok. If I need to rejuvenate them I can sitch in 8kgs of seed after the second cut and keep it grazed tight.
If it’s grass you want to grow, then grow grass. Red clover is to grass what apples are to oranges.
If you do have to have a companion crop with RC, then forage rye would be the best bet…then you’ll have the silage harvester on its knees, if that’s what your after? But you’re defeating the purpose completely because your forage protein drops 4-6% at least. The objective is to have a forage that’s around 20-24% protein
To optimize any clover you need a diet feeder.
No it doesn’t suffer from clubroot. Clubroot is a disease of brassicas. Was the salesman’s name Phil by any chance? Lol.
It does however suffer from Sclerotinia Trifolium which is similar to Sclerotinia stem rot in OSR. My land is poisoned with it now because I pushed hard with clovers…often intercropped dry season and wet season clovers on the same land continuously for 10yrs. Something had to give.
While on the subject, I’ve seen Irish lads posting the seed labels of MSS that they were planting on Twitter, and dry season clovers were included. Please be careful lads when ye’re planting these ‘miracle’ swards. Dry season clovers have NO place in Irish swards. I can only presume that someone stands to make a handy few quid selling the miracle to unknowing souls.
You would probably get away with a light grazing with sheep in spring and Autumn. Isn't it all leading back to the benefits of mixed farming. If a lad had a bit of tillage along with cattle and sheep, wouldn't the whole thing be less exposed to outside influence or interference.
If you only had clover in the sward I'd say you'd have a very light crop after a bit of a wilt. Isn't the idea the clover fixes nitrogen to grow the grass in the sward?
I wouldn’t use Italian ryegrass either. Absolutely hate the stuff. Why include any grass? Clover on its own is an excellent forage crop.
Exactly how long do people expect red clover to last anyhow?
I would not use Italian ryegrass as it will only last three years at the very most. I really question the economics of a crop you need to resow every 3 years.
I grew hybrid ryegrass and red clover and I be reluctant to go back to that. You have to cut at least three times or maybe four times. You cannot graze before closing and neither can you graze in the autumn. It's just adding cost into a system. Another problem was having to cut before your normal first cut and often ending up with low DM bales
Dose it suffer from club root. A seed sales man said you cannot continually replant the same field witn RC as it develops clubroot
Farmer Phil.
Farmer from Longford.
God help us all.
Oats isn’t the best partner in a mix due to Allelopathy. Perennial ryegrass isn’t a great partner either due to its growth pattern. If you absolutely must have a mix with red clover use an Italian ryegrass at not more than 7kg/ha, preferably around 4kg. I can’t see any benefit in including a cereal if including Italian ryegrass. I hate ryegrass. Cereal rye is sooo much better.
Did I mention that I hate ryegrass.
No, clover could be 3ft tall.
When let grow strong can the grass smother and kill the clover?
I have one field to cut but it's only a field where red clover seed grew 'wild'. It either went out in the dung or slurry from a field that I let grow strong and cut in Sept a couple of years back. Will stick up a pic before the weekend. The 'proper' stuff was cut about 2 weeks ago.
Any RC silage coming fit to cut the next few weeks?
Mine was all in a silage pit, wholecrop silage, the year I sowed the RC with oats and grass seed.
You would want to be careful with the shed rate. The clover would be grand it's the grass that could get smothered. Oats has less of an effect than barley. 15 kg/ acre at the most.
What way would a cereal, say oats or barley work in year 1 with a red clover grass mix
How do you store the oats over the winter, to keep it vermin proof.
Slowly thinking on trying a field of oats next year
Good Lord!
Is he Irish or Kiwi?
Wholecrop header would be my weapon of choice anyhow. As regards conserving clover, I’d often include as little as 1kg/ha of a cereal, usually barley, in a pure clover mix to help with conserving . Never had any problems.
Farmer Phil on you tube.
Whole crop header works well, but I used it with oats and RC not barley.
Yes why?
Jeez Dawg have ye any YouTube in France?!!
Is the barley starting to turn, ie, getting strawish? If so no bother in using a wholecrop header. In fact it’s better because there’ll less losses. Make sure you cut it as dry as possible. There’ll be plenty starch in the barley to conserve it. In fact the wetter it is the more appetizing it is. Make sure you cut as dry as possible because there’s a lot of juice in clover.
Who’s Phil?
Any problem with cutting the clover straight and putting it into the pit with a wholecrop header.phil seemed to say that if it does not get wilt it might be hard to preserve.in 2 minds about how to bring it in.i thought the barley crop was light so i was going to mow and wagon but it has come on alot in last weeks so I'm leaning towards harvester now.
