Silage making, Dutch style

[Renze]

I am here (and in other Facebook groups, Finnish, British, German) to learn how people live in other parts of the world.

Having video'd for my friends kids (silage between the rainshowers means only half gets mowed, so its done before they come back from school) i thought maybe you guys would enjoy practice and habits in a different part of the world too

Raking with Case CVX 1145 (Steyr 6145 CVT, sold only in Europe before Fendt started in America, and CNH and Deere quickly started offering their Euro versions in America) with a Kuhn twin rotor center disposal swather

Picking up with a Puma 180 CVX and a Schuitemaker Rapide 660 selfloading wagon, with cutting rotor cutting at 40mm length.

This was 5th cut, we are running out of daylight at 20:00 and its foggy till 11:00 so my mate likes to cut a short crop, when it rains and you have to wait, the crop grows so dense that it just doesnt dry with late season humid air.

He cuts at 7cm ( 2-3/4" above the grass lowest leaf knot, so that it grows non stop and doesnt loose a week of growth by forming new leaf knots first. This means he can cut every 4 weeks, high protein ryegrass. For stomach stimulation, he throws in two flakes of big baled hay from grass seed growers for roughness, into each TMR mixer load.

Here unloading at the heap: These are the only two heaps without sidewalls, they do make it easier but hes saving up money as he just bought the loader, the wagon and the Puma in the past 2 years.

The Puma and Rapide same as previous video, the loader is a 1991 Werklust WG18B, Dutch manufactured, with ZF driveline and Daf 620 engine (Daf is a Paccar brand since 1993 and in 1996 they quit making the smaller engines, these easily ran 30.000 hours between rebuilds, so they replaced the 130 to 180hp variants by Cummins 6BT, and waited till the QSB5.9 before replacing the 240hp variant of the DNT620 with a Cummins)

I have designed the last model series before Werklust quit producing, and started importing and servicing the swedish Ljungby loaders.

Silage spreader is a Holaras Jumbo with fold-down fork. Silage spreaders are a typical Dutch machine, you dont really find them in the rest of Europe, even though they save a lot of fuel versus dumping in front of the heap and carrying it up with a fork: My mate averages at 8 liter per hour with 133hp Daf power... 22500 hours and still going smooth
Though the fork still comes in handy to push some big lumps into place if the wagon man doesnt quite listen to the signals of the pit man.

 

[Torvy]

What crop is being cut for silage?

I was just up at my cousins' ranch in the Black Hills 2 weeks ago. They were cutting corn for silage. They also have sorghum they use as silage. The corn depends on how weather hit for planting and growth. Some gets harvested, the rest becomes silage.

They used a JD 9900 type harvester and the auger off-loaded onto grain trucks. Those trucks dumped into a pile. A large loader was used to make a pile similar to that in your 2nd video. The pile was then compressed using a 1980s era IH articulated tractor (I don't recall which model, besides, it has been completely rebuilt).

I didn't even think to record a video or even take pictures!

 

[Renze]

What crop is being cut for silage?

I was just up at my cousins' ranch in the Black Hills 2 weeks ago. They were cutting corn for silage. They also have sorghum they use as silage. The corn depends on how weather hit for planting and growth. Some gets harvested, the rest becomes silage.

This is predominantly English ryegrass. Our climate is so soft that it lasts our winters, and it gives the most protein, if you cut early enough.

First corn for silage was 2 weeks ago: Seeded early on high sand soil, where in dry years you dont get much crop, had the best crop this year, in a summer that has rained every week. The crop on low land near the canal isnt ready yet, about a month later. Its a poor crop because it drowned early in spring.

Because the contractor is short on employees, and an extra wagon to haul from a distance he charges only 60 euro an hour (my mate doesnt want to power wash the maize juice from two of his selfloading wagons for that money, if you calculate fuel use and a day of pressure washing) he decided to roll it himself now he has a decent loader that climbs easily

I know of one field where Sorghum is grown for the 2nd year, but its rare. Alfalfa isnt seeded much because of our low land and lots of rain, you drive it to mash too easily because Alfalfa is sensitive to soil structure damage.

Next year my mate wants to seed red clover into some silage fields, because it binds nitrogen from the air. This is because we habe one nutrification norm in Europe, in Finland where they cant grow more than 3 cuts of grass silage because of the short growing season and less productive, winter hard grass varieties, or in Spain where they cant grow more because of the drought. The norm is so low that you exhaust the land if you dont give back what you take, so the only legal option is to spread more fertilizer, which is crazy expensive with the gas prices since the Ukraine war.

So, the only other option is to apply your animal manure after the first four cuts and when the summer is over, let the clover supply the nitrogen it has caught from the air and stored in its root bulbs, in the afterseason.

They used a JD 9900 type harvester and the auger off-loaded onto grain trucks. Those trucks dumped into a pile. A large loader was used to make a pile similar to that in your 2nd video.

The contractor comes with a New Holland FR9040 or so. Not crazy 420 horsepower, but the pit man has to be able to pack it good. Often in long, low pits, to minimize the open surface exposed to oxygen when feeding from it in summer.

The pile was then compressed using a 1980s era IH articulated tractor (I don't recall which model, besides, it has been completely rebuilt).

The only 1980s articulated tractor you will find here, is the Ukrainian Kharkov T150-K which a local contractor bought in the 1990s in East Germany, after the fall of the iron curtain. The first years he used it as a tow tractor in wet maize harvests. Nowadays he only pulls it out of the shed once or twice for a parade
Especially when he starts that 9.2 liter Jaroslav 236 V6 engine with its 2 cylinder pony engine, it draws crowds. Its just hilarious when such an iron lump makes a lawn mower noise before the diesel starts
Not the local T150-K but you get the idea

 

[Torvy]

Much alfalfa in our Northern Plains states. It is usually cut and baled for hay, rather than silage.

I'd like to put in some clover down here to help feed the bees. I don't grow annual crops, so less need to rebuild nitrogen.

 

[Renze]

Much alfalfa in our Northern Plains states. It is usually cut and baled for hay, rather than silage.

I'd like to put in some clover down here to help feed the bees. I don't grow annual crops, so less need to rebuild nitrogen.

Alfalfa is like clover, a legume that binds nitrogen from the air.

Bales here, they need to be bone dry because our climate is humid, in which bales easily rot. And as you may guess, in a humid climate you dont get many chances to make hay.
If you have to wrap the bales to make haylage, the plastic makes it expensive.

 

[Torvy]

Down here in East Texas, it is also humid. Alfalfa is rare. Up north on cousin's ranch it is dry.

They wrap bales in a biodegradable mesh that the cattle can eat.

They will bale some of the sorghum as well.

 

[Renze]

They used a JD 9900 type harvester and the auger off-loaded onto grain trucks.

Over here, we only take trucks in the field on proper tires and planetary axles. Sometimes it works on highway tires, often it just forces you to take winches and excavators out...

On proper 800/45R30.5 tires you can at least push the forage harvester through the wet spots...
Thats what you get, with a 500hp forager and a 430hp Daf (Paccar) MX13 6x6 truck... the forager pilot asking on the CB radio "take it easy, i cant keep up... running out of horsepower"

And these 6x6 trucks started an easy life as a 6x6 dumptruck on regular highway tires, untill they got traded at half a million miles. The contractor who made them, quit last year because his Fendt dealership grew bigger than his contracting branch and he didnt want to compete with his dealerships customers anymore, but the trucks are carrying on at a contractor in the next village

 

[Torvy]

Thanks. Very interesting to hear the differences in other parts of the world.

 

[Renze]

Yes, in some seasons every 5 to 8 years, harvest is postponed till better circumstances... till the maize is starved bone dry and the land is still flooded. Then a farmer will take whatever soil structure damage it gives, to at least get his winter ration complete.

 

[big bubba]

OP: impressive operation you have, well done & illustrated... in terms of silage itself, please explain the silage process once harvested, how long it takes to break down, & assume it has better nutrient benefits than grazing/hay? basically all microbial i think? (for the benefit of less educated on the subject), regards