Forage Foundations

Baleage may not get a lot of attention here in the United States, but it accounts for 10 to 25 percent of all silage in western Europe, according to Dr. Thomas Chamberlain. During his presentation at the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting, Chamberlain, a private forage and dairy health consultant, explained the advantages of baleage for British producers and how some of those advantages may also apply to U.S. producers.

“Technology doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated,” said Mitch Fiene. “It should make you more efficient at what you do.”

During their presentation at the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting, Mitch shared some of the tools he and his cousin, Zach Fiene, are developing at their company, DMZ Aerial.

When you’re facing tight harvest windows and a lot of fields to chop, putting up the highest quality forages is no small task. As John Brantsen, Vita Plus dairy specialist, discussed during his session at the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting, improving forage quality can significantly impact profitability.

The picture of the dairy industry is changing fast with new technology, consolidation and volatile global markets. Gary Sipiorski, Vita Plus dairy development manager, said this will have big impacts for custom harvesters too.

For starters, it means the financial clock is ticking, Sipiorski said during his presentation at the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting. He challenged attendees to develop an action plan to beat the clock.

As rural populations decrease, farms and harvesting crews will have to be competitive to attract new employees to their teams.

Workforce demographics are rapidly changing, explained Peter Coyne, Vita Plus dairy service specialist, during his presentation at the recent Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting. He said more “help wanted” signs are posted now than 1980 and the unemployment rate continues to decrease. Every day in the U.S., 10,000 people turn 65 and exit the workforce, but the same number of people turn 21 every day. That means 10,000 jobs are in transition between someone with years of experience and someone who is brand new.

Huffman Farms in McGregor, Texas is a little different from other custom harvester operations. Kevin Huffman, owner, and Johan Brink, forage program manager, said they do a significant amount of custom harvesting in addition to harvesting, storing and delivering more than 50,000 tons of corn silage to dairies around central Texas.

Editor’s note: In addition to multiple customer service responsibilities at Vita Plus Gagetown in Gagetown, Michigan, Dwain Ewald takes the lead on maintenance services for customers’ forage inoculant applicators.

By Dwain Ewald, Vita Plus Gagetown customer service
With cold temperatures and piles of snow on the ground, it’s sometimes hard to think about and prepare for the upcoming forage season. However, doing a little maintenance now can save a lot of time when things get rolling in the spring. In this article, I will focus on the maintenance of the DE-1000 and DE-1008.5 forage inoculant applicator units manufactured by Dohrmann Enterprises, Inc. Maintenance steps are similar for both machines.