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Maize Silage Solutions Services
Step 1. Planning: he high energy and starch content of forage maize make it a highly valuable silage. But maize is also one of your riskiest forages in terms of preserving it. With its two opponents knocking on the door of: (1) aerobic spoilage (heating) caused by yeasts and moulds in the presence of air; and (2) risks to fermentation, especially when making greener, moister maize silage – it only takes one slip of management to significantly reduce the feed quality of your maize silage, or the tonnes of dry matter (DM) in your maize silage clamp. Indeed, results from two years of surveys of UK dairy farms suggest there is huge scope for improving how maize silage is made.
For example, while good consolidation and tight sealing were the most common methods used to manage aerobic spoilage (heating) – named by 60% and 77% of respondents respectively in the 2017 survey – this still left a large percentage of producers who weren’t using these important techniques to the full.
When planning your maize harvest, make sure you take the importance of good preservation into account, and that your contractor is lined up for your anticipated harvest date and has the appropriate additive.
If growing modern, ‘stay green’ varieties, they should not have died off (or dried off) by the time they are harvested.
Harvesting maize at the wrong whole plant DM can result in reduced silage quality. Don’t leave maize to die off before harvesting it, as many farmers do. Harvest instead according to the correct dry matter – for example, when the whole plant is at around 30-33% DM. However, don’t leave it to get too dry as this makes it more difficult to consolidate in the clamp.
To help identify the % dry matter, the cob and kernel maturity, which directly correlate to DM, can roughly be assessed in the field in two steps.
To assess maize maturity, firstly, collect at least five representative cobs and pull back the outer leaves. Pressing your fingernail into the kernels should result in a soft cheese texture at top of the cob and leave no indentation in kernels in the middle and bottom.
Secondly, break the cobs in half to examine kernels. A visible line will indicate where the solid yellow starch changes to the milky white sugar portion of the kernel. One-third to one-half of the kernel should be yellow starch.
These rough assessments should be confirmed with an oven or microwave DM test.
In addition to percent dry matter, get plant cutting height right. The bottom of a maize stalk has little nutritional value. Most of the energy and dry matter yield comes from the cob. So, set your cutting height based on the DM content and energy content you want to achieve. In all cases, always leave at least 15 cm of stubble to avoid soil contamination. The stem below this height is also likely to contain high levels of Fusarium – carrying the risk of mycotoxins.
For chop lengths, while short chop lengths make consolidation easier in the clamp, they will have a direct impact on how the silage performs in the rumen. Consider a chop length of 1.5 to 2 cm. Be aware, though, that longer chop lengths will make consolidation to remove air from the clamp more difficult, increasing the risk of aerobic spoilage (silage heating).
More recognisably, maize silage is also very prone to losses that occur when the silage heats up. These losses take place when naturally-occurring yeasts on the crop survive the fermentation process and initiate the process of aerobic spoilage (characterised by heating) once the maize silage clamp is opened. This affects the keeping quality and allows the growth of moulds that can potentially produce mycotoxins, which carry through to the ration.
Greener maize with a higher moisture content may need extra help with fermentation. That said, even if harvesting maize at the correct DM, the base of the plant is almost certainly starting to senesce, so will contain a lot of yeasts and moulds that will be introduced into the silage clamp.
Select the right additiveWhen it comes to selecting a silage additive, there are two areas to be addressed: the fermentation and aerobic spoilage (heating).
Treating to improve the fermentation can certainly pay dividends, as the more efficient bacteria in Ecosyl (Lactobacillus plantarum MTD/1) will help to overcome the high levels of poor bacteria that can be present – e.g. in the leaf joints and on any damaged or dying leaves. Improving the fermentation has also been shown to improve animal performance and should be the basis of any treatment.
If heating is considered a risk, then using a combination product combining MTD/1 with either a second bacterium such as Lactobacillus buchneri PJB/1 (as in the product Ecocool) or with a chemical preservative, will also help to keep the clamp cooler for longer.
Some examples of the benefits of including Lactobacillus plantarum MTD/1 bacteria to produce a faster, more efficient initial fermentation:
- Makes better use of available sugars
- Preserves more nitrogen as true protein
- Reduces fermentation DM losses
- Minimises undesirable microbial activity
- Animal performance
Some examples of the benefits of including Lactobacillus buchneri PJB/1 bacteria to inhibit the activities of the yeasts and moulds that cause aerobic spoilage:
- Less heating
- Less physical waste
- Less risk of mycotoxins
- Lower DM losses
- Higher energy feed
An example of a silage additive containing both of these beneficial bacteria is Ecocool.
Certain bacterial additives can be applied in ultra-low volumes of water – down to just 20 ml/tonne of forage.
Compared with traditional, higher water volumes, ULV can offer a number of benefits to both the contractor applying the additive and to the farmer whose crop is being treated:
- Much less fetching and carrying of water – allowing more time to be spent at the clamp e.g. on consolidation, which is also important for producing good silage
- Less mixing and fewer stoppages in the field to fill up – leading to time savings
- More acres harvested per day – leading to increased chance of harvesting crops in optimum condition e.g. if the weather breaks
Before using this method, check first whether your silage additive is approved / suitable for ULV application. Some silage additives (e.g. Ecocool) are suitable, but others are not.