When was silage invented

Please try again or contact us. For assistance, call 01 or email subs farmersjournal. Read about how the code works here. Sign in. Incorrect details. Please try again or reset password. If would like to speak to a member of our team, please call us on Reset password. Please enter your email address and we will send you a link to reset your password. Link sent to your email address. We have sent an email to your address.

Please click on the link in this email to reset your password. If you can't find it in your inbox, please check your spam folder. If you can't find the email, please call us on Email address not recognised. There is no subscription associated with this email address. To read our subscriber-only content. Sign in Incorrect details Please try again or reset password Email address This field is required.

Password This field is required. The type of silage that is right for an individual business hinges on a number of factors such as the area and size of the farm. Bunker and bag silos are still the silos of choice for many farms - especially large farms.

While they can definitely be cost-efficient, these types of silos come with certain downsides. Firstly, erecting such silos requires a sizable upfront investment. Another requirement is that the builder pick a reasonable size, which, however, depends on the number of animals to be fed and, thus, calls for calculations that need to factor in future developments. Other factors to be considered: what type of feed will I use?

What is the size of my daily feed rations? How many feeding days are there in a year? Unless all of these factors have been considered carefully, the silo operators may experience that the bunker silos do not carry the capacity needed for the fermentation to finish properly. When later removing the feed, the farmers may find that the feed is fermenting again, resulting in substantial losses in nutrients.

Packaging the feed into silage bales undoubtedly offers a host of advantages. Provided they are the product of good and proper silage practices, the feed units will be of high quality and a convenient size. In contrast to bunker silos, bale silage does not involve the risk of losses in nutrients when the silage is opened on account of the fact that the silage bales are used up quickly, leaving next to no time for the feed to ferment again.

A year later an English translation was published in the USA and American farmers quickly adopted the new technique. Although the French and American farmers were very enthusiastic it was not until that a talk given at the Reading Show of the Royal Agricultural Society stimulated interest in Britain.

By there were apparently 1, silos in the country, with farmers here concentrating on ensiling grass rather than maize. Although the silage produced was palatable it was of very poor nutritional value and losses were very high. Nevertheless the method persisted until the middle of this century. Sign up to our newsletter for top tips and advice on making consistently better silage and increasing the amount of milk produced from your own silage.