Silage
July JJu uly y 2021 202 021 1
116-page 6 feature f t
Feed drives Finley dairy Better feed is one of the keys Marcus Flanagan is using to drive improved performance on his Finley dairy farm. See page 19
Extending your silage life PAGE 24
Secrets to quality silage PAGE 26
18 Country News week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021
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Country News, week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021 19
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silage 2021
Fodder drives expansion plans By Daneka Hill
oodlawn Dairy outside W Finley spends $6000 a day feeding its cows and
young stock. “We’ve been a full TMR (total mixed ration) system for about three years now,” Marcus Flanagan said. “We grow all the feed, harvest it and bring it back to the cows. “Moving to a fully-housed system makes it easier to handle the extremes of the weather.” Woodlawn Dairy runs a 600-head milking herd, but the plan is to reach 900 in three years. Feed and shelter are at the centre of this ambitious goal. In September shedding will be going over the exposed feedpad. Right now the farm is in the middle of constructing two sheds and a concrete area — dubbed the ‘‘feed centre’’. The two new sheds will have concrete bays installed where grains and byproducts like almond hulls, cotton seed and canola meal can be stored. The area from the feed centre to the feedpad will be concreted for better machinery access. “The idea with the concrete is it reduces waste,” Mr Flanagan said. “If it drops on the ground it is waste. It’s gone. Whereas on the concrete you can pick it up.
“Attention to detail and your wastage is important . . . as soon as we put our feedpad in we were saving three tonnes of feed a day and our new feed centre will help even more.” When it comes to making silage for TMR feeding, keeping an eye on dry matter and chop length at harvest is crucial. “We aim to make our silage at 32 to 33 per cent dry matter, whether it’s cereal, corn or lucerne silage,” Mr Flanagan said. “That moisture helps the ensiling process, it helps pack better, get all the air out, makes the silage better and cuts down the loss of energy value in the feed.” Woodlawn Dairy uses contractors to harvest the silage. Mr Flanagan’s advice to farmers shopping around for a contractor is to make sure your communication is crystal clear. “The contractor needs to be well aware of the process — how it’s weighed, tested and billed — plus what moisture and chop length you’re chasing,” he said. “We’ve got a really good contractor who’s got good gear, a fair rate but, most importantly, he is very professional. “It’s essential to get the harvester when you want to harvest. It’s only two weeks
between having really good silage and ordinary silage.” The farm’s commitment to a clean and tidy silage system extends to the feeding out process. Feed-out workers use a face shaver attachment on a telehandler to ‘‘shave’’ silage off the bunker. “It has little teeth on it, it spins and shaves how much the guys need,” Mr Flanagan said. “The shaver keeps it all neat and tidy and stops the air getting into it. It cuts down on all the loose stuff.” Having full control over what their cows are eating gives the Flanagans the ability to create special mixes for their herds. Springers and maternity girls get their own mixes, as do the early lactation and late lactation milkers. “That is one of the things which interest me, being able to get things exactly right and give the cows what they need,” Mr Flanagan said. “They can be massive producers if they are looked after.” Corn makes up 70 per cent of the silage on the farm, with about 11 to 12 tonnes of it fedout daily alongside four tonnes of additional fodder.
Cows eat a new spread of corn silage mix at Woodlawn Dairy. An automated robot keeps the feed pushed up to the cows, and uneaten feed goes to young stock.
‘‘In six months this will all be different,’’ Marcus Flanagan says. These two sheds will become grain and feed bunkers and the dirt will be concreted over for a more clean and tidy process.
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silage 2021
Silage is key to long-term future By Daneka Hill
or the 1000-cow Glenbank F Farm outside Tocumwal, silage is a must.
The boom or bust water allocations NSW farmers have come to know mean dairy farmers need to be ready to go big — or survive on nothing — at the drop of a hat. Kristen Clark and her sister Donna run their mother’s dairy farm together. “When water is available we have to grow as much fodder as we can so then we’ve got this year’s and next year’s in storage for the drought times,” Kristen Clark said. “We would like to have two years in reserve. In the drought we’d drawn right down on it and now we’re building up again. We did well with the corn last year and hopefully we can do it again this year.” Last year the Clarks produced 4500 tonnes of fodder off their farm — 2500 of that corn and 2000 dryland cereals. “When there is water we do a bit of grass silage, otherwise it’s other crops,” Ms Clark said. For more than a decade the farm has been steadily adopting a barn-style, intensive approach to dairy farming as the sisters plan for the effects of climate change. Their sheltered feedpad was
Kristen Clark and her two sons, Isaac, 7, and Xavier, 5, Crighton in Glenbank Farm’s covered feedpad. The area can hold the entire milking herd, which fluctuates between 900 and 1000 cows.
constructed in 2005 and continues to hold up against daily use in winter and nearconstant use in summer. The feeding-out becomes more intensive in summer when the pasture is taking a hit from the heat and lack of rain. “We’ve got a feed-out guy who
is pretty much full-time feeding cows,” Ms Clark said. “At the moment we are still grazing, so he’s not so hardpressed, but in the summer he needs to be ready to go as soon as the cows are being milked.” The Clarks use contractors to harvest their fodder, with
practically everything going into pits. Pit silage is then pulled out with a grab head on a JCB telehandler and taken to the feedpad in a silage mixer wagon on the back of a truck. Ms Clark said the farm was evolving towards the barn
system more and more as time went on, which meant more and more silage. “By having the shed it helps with animal welfare. The shed is a response to climate change and those hot summers,” she said. Recently the farm was awarded a grant from Coles to construct loafing barns adjoining the feedpad. The loafing areas will help the farm turn the herd’s bedding and waste into compost, while also giving the herd better facilities in summer. Glenbank Farm became a Coles supplier in 2020. Hard lessons the Clarks have learned over the years is to not relax when it comes to quality. “You need to keep on top of quality. All of it, but particularly at harvesting,” Ms Clark said. “Harvesting it at the right stage is the easiest way to get best quality. “It is easier to make up a mix if you’ve got good ingredients to start with. “If you start with ordinary ingredients you struggle to make a mix the cows will eat from. Then you have to add in extra and it becomes an expensive way to do it.”
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silage 2021
The TMR (total mixed ration) being fed-out in the shed in midwinter. It’s majority corn with lucerne hay mixed in. ‘‘We supplement the silage with hay,’’ Kristen Clark says. ‘‘Especially now with them on lush pasture.’’ A quad bike has been modified to carry an arm on the front, which pushes silage to where the cows can reach it and keeps the middle laneway clean for machinery.
Using pit storage means the farm can skip the hassle of baling. It also allows easier mixing of different feeds, creating a more customised TMR.
Glenbank Farm runs a 1000-head Holstein-Jersey mix dairy herd.
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silage 2021
Aussie ingenuity leads the way here is a world of different T between making great silage and doing a great job
making silage. In fact, the better the pasture and crop the more challenging it is to get the ensiling process perfect. Product distributor 4Sight has expanded into silage inoculants and is on a mission to prove its new type of silage additives is better than the rest. According to 4Sight, the higher quality the feed the more protein silage has, but less sugars and starches. This creates a problem when it comes to the fermentation process, which is fed by the sugar and starch content. This means the better the silage, the harder to ensile it. “When we need a little sugar, we have lots, and when we need lots, we have far too little,” 4Sight said. “The extra sugar required (for high quality silage) must come from non-fibre carbohydrates, but this takes time, resulting in the breakdown of the previous real protein.” The solution to this problem has always been silage additives, either as lactic acid or lactic acid producing bacteria. “Apart from incremental
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advances, nothing much as changed since then — at least till now,” the Shepparton-based business said. “enSILE-Bio RTU is not quite a revolution in terms of product, but it is in terms of thinking and application.” Developed to accelerate the ensiling process, the new inoculant reduces heat
production, retains more energy and degrades less protein by stimulating the natural sugar to alcohol to lactic acid reaction chain. Developed by Townsvillebased VRM BioLogik, enSILE-Bio RTU requires no premixing or refrigeration and is entirely Australian-made and owned. “enSILE-Bio is a ready-to-use
catalyst that make the conditions much more favourable for the rampant growth of the endogenous (not applied) lactic acid bacteria — the ones already contaminating the silage in vast numbers,” 4Sight said. “This means the process of ensilation starts much sooner, and importantly, moves into the
non-fibre carbohydrates breakdown quickly and aggressively, and thus, the ensilation is finished faster preserving more dry matter (less heat generated) and more true protein.” 4Sight is a regenerative agriculture-focused Victorian business, which distributes and develops products for sustainable farming practices.
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silage 2021
Storing the best feed in the quality is key for Fodder livestock producers.
Tama Australia Western Victorian territory manager Phil Millgate discusses silage wrap with fodder contractor Lee Hitchings.
And if they can store hay and silage without risking any downgrades to the nutritional characteristics of the feed, even better. That’s according to contractor Lee Hitchings. “Farmers are feed testing more and putting in the types of crops that would suit higher energy and higher protein feeds,” he said. “They are more conscious now of what they are baling compared to 10 to 20 years ago, they are more mindful of producing high quality feed.” Lee and wife Emma operate Hitchings Contracting at Irrewarra, just north of Colac. For more than 20 years they have been preserving fodder, cultivating soil and direct-drilling paddocks from the prime dairy country on the outskirts of Simpson, across to the grazing land of Barwon Downs and further north to where livestock production meets the vast fields of cereal crops at Cressy. They produce a total of 20,000 to 30,000 round bales each year — including some of their own lucerne, clover and cereal hay
and silage, which gets sold across the state. The Colac region has been famous for its productive grassfed dairy industry, but in recent years the make-up of these farms has changed. “Dairy production did go up and then it levelled out, some of the bigger dairies bought the dairies alongside them and some of the smaller farms have now gone over to beef,” Mr Hitchings said. “We still supply them, just different types of feed. “For those with beef, it might be a more fibrous feed like cereal hay at times of year instead of the clover and lucerne hay for the dairy. “Some still feed some of that to beef, but not all the time, whereas with the dairy side of our business it’s always about higher energy and protein feed. “We bale straw and on-sell it to either dairy, sheep or beef farmers, they all use a bit of it now. “Years ago, it used to be just dairy farmers using it in a mixer. Now we sell barley straw to people feedlotting beef or lambs and they are mixing it with silage.” ➤ Continued on page 27.
Country News, week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021 25
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silage 2021
best way is key to success ➤ From page 26.
Dairy makes up about 60 per cent of Hitchings Contracting business, with the remainder split between beef and sheep farmers. Whether the farmer is requiring baling or the purchase of fodder, Mr Hitchings said quality was always front-of-mind. Two CLAAS mower conditioners help to maintain the quality of all pastures and crops during cutting, while Mr Hitchings and his team ted all silage and also hay when the weather isn’t co-operative. Crop packaging plays a huge role in ensuring the calibre of the feed is maintained. “Farmers are always asking ‘what is the strongest net and plastic’ and they are always wondering if we are putting on the best available net or plastic,” Mr Hitchings said. Since 2001, he has consistently used Tama Australia’s Triowrap, the multilayered and UV-stabilised film used extensively throughout Australia and New Zealand. For him, Triowrap is proven in the paddock, with the film remaining attached to the bale in all conditions, protecting the
silage from pesky bird holes, regardless of the ensiled crop. “We use it for its strength,” Mr Hitchings said. “If you have got something that lets the spikes of the grass, lucerne, oats — and even ryegrass if it’s dry and stalky enough — punch through the film, it lets oxygen in and ruins the silage.” Mr Hitchings applies a minimum of six layers to each silage bale, but adjusts it for bales that require additional strength for trucking or those that will be stored for longer periods of time. He had some farmer clients this year who specifically requested additional net and wrap, and were happy to pay for it, as they were storing excess feed in preparation for drier years. “By spending an extra $1 a bale you are going to have a bale worth $50 that you can feed. “Once it gets damaged, that bale, you may as well say it is $20, it’s gone half-rotten and lost its energy and protein. It’s not even covering the cost it and milk production will be down, beef and lamb weight will be down.” Longevity and strength in crop
packaging is something Tama Australia works hard to achieve, and the company uses paddock trials to ensure its products can withstand different conditions. Tama Australia Western Victorian territory manager Phil Millgate provides back-up service and advice for Hitchings Contracting. He has worked with Mr Hitchings for years and said it was valued customers like Mr Hitchings that provide the realword feedback needed to develop products for Australian farmers. Mr Hitchings has also trialed new products on small portions of his own crop. “A customer trialing a product is great for us,” Mr Millgate said. “For example, and with Lee’s permission, I can say to other contractors about his experience and then explain the difference. In some cases, I can even say to them ‘go and ring him, ask him’. “The lab tests are good, but as we find out a lot of things in the field, it is where we have to test it. “It’s good to have someone like Lee who has been working with us for a fair while.”
Hitchings Contracting uses CLAAS mowers.
Lee Hitchings sometimes trials new products for Tama Australia.
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26 Country News week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021
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silage 2021
How to make the king of bales By Daneka Hill
eerust dairy farmer Ashley Z Dempster is letting us in on a best-kept secret.
Back when he was baling up to 10,000 bales of silage and selling most of it, he wouldn’t have dared let the trick slip. Luckily, Country News came to his farm on a good day and the truth was let out of the bag. “The tedder is the secret to making good-quality silage and hay from grass. I cannot stress that enough,” Mr Dempster said. “We mow, then we ted. The tedder is the best-kept secret.” In order to understand what the tedder is doing, we have to imagine we’re feeding vampires, not cows. The mower gives the grass injuries, perhaps skinning its knees or knuckles. The tedder then comes along right when the grass is healing and rips all the scabs off and opens the wounds deeper. Stopping the grass from ‘‘healing’’ increases the quality of your silage. Another important step in Mr Dempster’s recipe for ‘‘rocket fuel’’ silage is baling ASAP. “On day one we cut 9 am to 12,” he said. “We ted that afternoon, next morning we ted as soon as the dew is off. “The other thing about tedding
Ashley Dempster says anyone who makes silage should take the Murray Dairy Top Fodder course. ‘‘It gives you the nuts and bolts advice, not the ‘what colour is your machine’ advice.’’
is it lifts it off the ground, so you get the air underneath it and it dries quicker. If we get rain, it’s got to be 20 mm or more to affect us. “Everyone gets there at 11 o’clock and goes ‘you’ll never bale this today’ then about 12.30 they go ‘well, this is starting to dry, better get the rake’.”
The mowing man then jumps in the rake and the tedder man in the baler, and the rest is history. “One mower pass, two tedder passes, one rake pass and a baler pass. Mind you, this all happens within 30 hours of the mow and that’s how you get medium-rare steak.” Left to dwell on its misfortune any longer, the grass would have
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lost the taste and juice, which makes silage so valuable. “I tried telling people in the drought up Queensland two years ago,” Mr Dempster said. “They were buying in all this hay and straw and I said ‘but your cows have no feed, nothing to eat with it; you’re feeding them a packet-full of dry bickies every day — they are all constipated’. “So we ended up making silage out of lesser grade food like rice, straw and sorghum stubble and it changed the drought cattle’s gut big time. Their gut started moving more, so they did better.” Mr Dempster describes silage as the ‘‘soup’’ or ‘‘dip’’ whereas hay is the ‘‘biscuit’’ or ‘‘bread’’. “Mind you it’s all grass, but it is nice to have your bickies with dip. “And you don’t want to feed silage on its own when the cows are in a lush, green winter pasture because it’s like drinking water with your soup. You want bread with your soup, so we spread hay before putting the silage in. “That’s also why you want to feed silage, not hay, in summer when the pasture is dry and the cows are hot.” Another difference which sets the Dempster silage method apart is the lack of any netting.
Not only does this make for a cleaner, safer process come feed-out time, Mr Dempster says, but it also allows him to pack more into each bale. “I don’t use netting, instead I use extra plastic to hold it all together. “The advantage is the plastic remembers how it used to be rolled and will shrink in on itself after baling, giving a very tight bale. “I’m putting seven layers of plastic on and it’s really compressing down. No air in there, no mould. “These bales are solid, they are the king of bales.” Mr Dempster uses fixedchamber balers modified to wrap with film, not netting. “My baler — there is only three of them in Australia. Soon to be a fourth.” Another piece of advice Mr Dempster wanted to stress was the use of plastics. “When you find a good woman, stick with it. When you find a good plastic, stick with it. “Stay with the reputable guys, because the ones who come in and do it on price and whatever — they might save you one dollar, but that one dollar isn’t worth it when it turns around and bites you on the bum.”
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Country News, week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021 27
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silage 2021
Wheat silage being fed out to the milking herd. In addition to the silage, Ashley Dempster spreads hay out, so the cows can have some ‘‘bread with their soup’’.
WORDS OF ADVICE
Ashley Dempster says farmers should be getting their plastic orders in soon, as the worldwide shortage of resin and shipping difficulties will take a toll on availability come baling time. ‘‘Dairy farmers will already know their gloves have doubled in price, it will be just the same,” he said. ‘‘I don’t want to alarm anybody, but start sorting it out quick.’’
Ashley Dempster’s secret silage weapon — a 20-year-old tedder.
There is plenty of green, but the cows are drawn to the dry hay. This is the ‘‘bread’’ among the lush ‘‘soup’’, Ashley Dempster says.
A silage plastic test on the farm. Ashley Dempster trials different plastic wraps to find the one that works best for his enterprise.
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Country News, week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021 29
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silage 2021
CLAAS backs new robot tractor achinery giant CLAAS and M a Dutch start-up think they may have an answer to
skilled labour shortages — a fully autonomous tractor expected to launch next year. CLAAS recently acquired a minority stake in AgXeed, the start-up they hope will help develop and commercialise autonomous agricultural machines. On announcing the partnership, CLAAS said while agriculture across the world continues to be more productive, the number of people employed is falling, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to source workers. “The agricultural machinery industry has come up with various solutions to address these challenges, ranging from operator assistance and machine optimisation systems to precision farming technologies, and even autonomous machines in different size and performance classes,” the company said. “For CLAAS, collaborating with and investing in AgXeed marks a logical step towards future-proof technologies.” Netherlands-based AgXeed offers a smart, sustainable and fully autonomous system with scalable hardware, virtual planning tools and extensive
CLAAS hopes autonomous machinery will help ease labour shortages.
data models. And it will now be bringing its autonomous AgBot to fields, pastures and specialty crops alongside a full suite of vehicle peripherals. The aim is for this autonomous field robot with diesel-electric drive, wheels or crawler tracks,
up to 156 hp and standard threepoint linkage to assist farmers with a wide range of tasks in future. “Our involvement provides CLAAS with access to innovative technologies in a familiar market segment and complements our own expertise in autonomy and
robotics,” CLAAS chief executive Thomas Böck said. “It’s a win-win situation in our view, and one reason why we decided to invest in this start-up company, as well as the fact that the targeted AgXeed technologies are in an advanced state of development.
“This solution offers farmers and contractors concrete economic added value, and what’s more, it will soon be available.” AgBot, together with the associated software solutions and platforms, is expected to be launched in 2022. AgBot includes central, webbased planning and analysis tool to boost efficiency through automated, optimised route planning and machine settings. Optional crawler tracks with belt widths from 300 to 910 mm, combined with a low maximum weight of 6.0 tonnes (without ballast) are designed to make the machine soil-friendly. The vehicle also features an adjustable track width, loadsensing hydraulics and a linkage with a lift capacity of up to 8.0 tonnes. An electric PTO, independent of the engine speed, and external high-voltage connections are optionally available. The electric equipment includes all the technology required for hazard and obstacle detection, in addition to an RTK steering system. AgBots will be launched in various sizes and performance classes with further solutions in development.
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30 Country News week of Tuesday, July 13, 2021
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silage 2021
The Manitou MLT-X 840 is a great machine for people who move a lot of silage on their farms, according to O’Connors.
MLT-X perfect for silage work
hen it comes to silage, the most W across-the-board loved piece of machinery is a handy 140 hp red
telehandler, according to O’Connors. Tom Sheridan is the sales development manager for the entire group, overseeing all of O’Connors branches in South Australia, Victoria and NSW. “The Manitou MLT-X does a fantastic job in silage operations, it’s one of those machines, which is not only really strong when used in silage, but has good versatility
for year-round use,” Mr Sheridan said. “With a shear grip it is fantastic for feeding out pit silage while a range of other arms can handle wrapped silage.” The MLT-X range includes several version with different specs, but the 840 version is a farmer favourite. Mr Sheridan said what made this version of the MLT-X telehandler so popular among silage contractors and dairy farmers was the price versus spec balance.
“It really leads itself to buyers because of how well priced it is on spec,” he said. “This 840 is pretty much a top spec machine, it has a 7.5 m reach, four-tonne lift and 140 horse power engine.” Mr Sheridan said anyone with questions around availability and service support should not hesitate to contact their local dealership — including Shepparton, Corowa and St Arnaud. “In north-east Victoria we’re really
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pleased to see the region looking fantastic right now and dairy farming is coming along really strong,” he said. Annually, O’Connors sells roughly 30 of the Manitou 840s across the group’s 13 outlets. Manitou is a French company, which made its name with an all-terrain forklift. Since then, Manitou has continued to offer a range of handling machinery for construction, freight and agriculture.
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