Making silage: Choose appropriate fermentation aids
by GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
NEWARK, Del. - Dairy cows
need to be fed year-round, but
plants mature at one time and
become less nutritious as they age.
So we need to somehow preserve
the forages we grow for cattle feed.
One solution is to make silage,
using a fermentation process that
produces acids which preserve the
plants for later feeding. The dairy
industry has been using silages for
well over 150 years.
To obtain good fermentation,
proper management in necessary.
The crop must be harvested in the
proper stage of maturity and cut
rapidly to reduce respiration
losses, unless wilted silage
(haylage) is intended.
Boars
(Continued from Page D 2)
performance of your pigs, the
following criteria may be of some
help. Select boars with:
• Average daily gain of 2.00
pounds/day or better.
• Backfat (adjusted to 230
pounds) of 1.0 inch or less.
• Feed/gain ration of 2.75 or less.
• Age to 230 pounds of 155 days or
less.
• Litter size of 10 or more pigs
farrowed and eight or more
weaned.
• Underline of 12 or more well
spaced, fully developed teats.
• Feet and legs medium to large
boned, free-moving, with adequate
cushion on front and rear legs, and
equal toe size.
Where can you find per
formance-tested boars? Many
states, conduct boar tests. Check
with your extension swine or
livestock specialist to find out the
nearest source of performance
tested boars. They’re worth the
investment.
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The silo (vertical or horizontal)
must be filled evenly and packed
very, very well. To insure this,
equipment must be ready and
functioning properly.
What happens in the silo during
fermentation? For good preser
vation, organic acids must be
produced that will “pickle” the
silage mass. This is done by
microbes which convert silage
sugars (carbohydrates) into acids.
For the microbes to work,
conditions must by anaerobic (no
oxygen). If oxygen is present,
there will be cell respiration in
stead, which will convert the
sugars to carbon dioxide gas and
produce heat. The gas will be a
loss, the heat can damage the
forage, and proteins and molds will
grow. Thus, tight packing is
essential to exclude oxygen from
the silage mass.
Once anaerobic conditions are
achieved, the proper microbes can
start to produce the proper acids.
Hopefully, there will be a large
population of the microbes which
produce lactic acid, but there can
also be many others which
generate products that are not
useful preservers.
The fermentation must produce
acids which will ultimately inhibit
all microbe action. If this doesn’t
happen, all the carbohydrates,
sugars, starches and fibers in the
silage mass will be broken down,
leaving silage of much lower
quality.
Thus, to preserve your crop well,
you must have successful fer
mentation. And this depends on
three things: the absence of
oxygen, and the presence of ample
carbohydrates plus microbes that
produce acids-especially lactic
acid.
Over the years many products
have appeared on the market to
aid silage fermentation. These
materials are easy to evaluate,
provided one remembers these
three preservation requirements.
One group of silage aids uses
acids to preserve the crop directly
by lowering pH. Besides
phosphoric and sulfuric acids,
there is formic acid, which many
European dairy farmers use.
Though these acids work well,
many American producers dislike
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nature.
Another silage treatment in
volves adding carbohydrates to the
forage in the form of grain to
provide more starches and sugars
to be broken down into acids.
Considerable research was done on
this practice in the 1930’s and
1950’s at Delaware and other
agricultural experiment stations.
Besides giving good fer
mentation, researchers found that
adding carbohydrates also added
dry matter to absorb moisture and
reduce seepage. Unfortunately,
many producers have abandoned
this proven method because of the
large amount of grain that must be
handled-200 to 300 pounds of com
per ton of green forage.
Enzymatic additives are another
fermentation aid. These products
contain enzymes that break down
forage fibers into the car
bohydrates that fuel microbe
activity and acid production.
Other products add microbes to
the forage. The theory behind this
practice is to add acid-producing
microbes, so they will dominate
the process and speed up fer
mentation. This should cause less
loss of silage substance since the
acids will be produced more
quietly with less heat.
Reasearch has shown that the
additive must contain at least
28,000,000 microbes per ounce in
order to successfully dominate a
normal population of microbes.
SAVE
Also, the microbes must be able to
function in the particular silage
environment.
Lactobacillus plantarum is one
microbe that has proven suc
cessful for this purpose. A mixture
of Lactobacillus, Streptococcus
and Pediococcus species may be
useful in that they cover the range
of pH usually found in silages.
Yet another approach is to add a
material that inhibits the growth of
yeast and molds. Propionic acid
and some mineral salts will do this.
All of these treatments are
useful in certain circumstances
but superfluous in others. Which
ones work depends on the crop to
be ensiled. For example, com in
the soft dent stage is an ideal crop
for fermentation. It is ap
proximately 33 percent dry matter
and has a large supply of readily
fermentable carbohydrates.
Normally, additives aren’t much
help in making com silage if it’s
properly cut, filled and packed.
Weeds harbor Fusarium
NEWARK, Del. - A recent
study conducted at the University
of Delaware Agricultural Ex
periment Station has shown that
the root systems of common weeds
may serve as reservoirs of
Fusarium wilt, a fungus disease
capable of devastating soybean
yields.
The study was conducted by
former master’s degree candidate
John B. Helbig under the super
vision of Dr. Robert B. Carroll, a
plant pathologist in the depart
ment of plant science. Helbig
studied 21 weed species for their
potential role in Fusarium blight
(Fusarium oxysporum) infection
of soybeans. He found the fungus in
the roots of 16 species. Among the
most important were horsenettle,
ivyleaf morningglory, jim
sonweed, lambsquarter, tall
morningglory and velvetleaf.
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Lancaster Farming Saturday, October 5,1985-D5
If you have a very wet crop (one
low in dry matter, such as direct
cut small grains) or one with low
carbohydrate content but high
protein (such as alfalfa or small
grains), an additive can be very
beneficial.
The goal in silage making is to
preserve a good crop for good feed
at a later date. To do this, part of
the plant’s nutrients are used to
produce acids for preservatives.
It’s impossible to make silage
better than the harvested crop you
start with, but you can minimize
losses.
Good silage practices are a
tremendous money-maker and an
important money-saver on our
dairy farms. Silage has replaced
land-costly and labor-costly
pasture and hay feeding. It has
enabled us to produce milk at a
much lower cost. Under the
current cost-price squeeze on our
dairy farms, we must make the
best silage we can.
Helbig took samples of root and
stem tissue from 800 weed plants
growing in conventional and no
tillage soybean fields at 20
locations. He observed no direct
relationship between the infected
weeds and tillage practices. Weeds
carrying the fungus showed no
signs of infection when collected in
the field or when inoculated in the
greenhouse with Fusarium
isolated from soybean plants. This
suggests that the fungus lives in a
non-infective relationship with the
weed root system.
Sixteen of the 17 Fusarium
isolates obtained from weeds were
able to infect Essex soybean plants
(a highly susceptible variety)
under greenhouse conditions.
The fact that weeds in soybean
fields can serve as symptomless
hosts of the Fusarium pathogen is
important new knowledge that
may eventually help farmers
reduce the potential for crop
damage by this blight fungus.
Features:
• Positive drive in
loose and frozen
material
• Smoother operation
in tough conditions
• Quicker
changeovers and
increased silo
capacity
• Steadier delivery ol
silage with less
winch adjustment
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