Forage Foundations

Most all dairy producers share similar headaches during harvest season whether they own their own mchinery or hire custom harvesters.  So what is the better option?  Two producers shared their thoughts and insight on the strategies that best fit their business model.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of harvest in the spring and when you go to use the applicator, all it does is leave a puddle on the ground.  Take a few minutes to properly clean your equipment this fall and it could save you hours in the spring.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
If you have adequate corn silage kernel processing, yet a high fecal starch percentage, you may need to look into your grain source and high moisture corn processing equipment for answers.

Two of the most common types of high moisture corn processing equipment available are hammer mills and roller mills.  Either can adequately process corn, but the choice sometimes boils down to availability.

By Pat Hoffman, Vita Plus dairy technical specialist
This past summer at Vita Plus, we evaluated a new ration formulation sub-model that accounts for the rumen unsaturated fatty acid load (RUFAL) in the ration.  Research has demonstrated that feeding dairy cows excessive levels of RUFALs has a negative effect on milk fat test.  In fact, in our summer project, more than 50 percent of the variance in milk fat percent across herds could be explained by accessible RUFAL concentrations in the diet. 

Corn silage harvest is in full gear across most of the Midwest!  As you get a few minutes out of the fields, check to see how harvest has been going in your area.

By Bryan Knoper, Vita Plus dairy specialist
Do you know the value of your stored forages? 

At the farm level, it is worth more than the cost to build another freestall barn.  At the cow level, it is realized in the fluctuation of her milk production when you switch forages.

By Jon Rasmussen, Vita Plus dairy technology specialist
In part one of this series, I discussed how we can better manage haylage in the field to minimize quality variation.  Now, we will turn our attention to how dairy nutritionists manage haylage variation in the ration.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
Several times a year, a member of the Vita Plus forage team gets a call that starts like this: “I’ve got a chance to buy some haylage from a neighbor, what should I pay for it?”

With wide variation in quality, moisture, and point of delivery, the answer can be a little daunting as it depends on a number of objective and subjective factors.  Let’s tackle the objective ones first because they’re fairly easy. 

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
When we consider a technology that promises better forage quality, we often ask, “What does it cost?” 

In reality, a better question would be “How much does it save?”

Weighing the option to use oxygen barrier plastic under conventional plastic is a great example of that scenario.

By Peter Coyne, Vita Plus dairy service specialist

Ben Franklin said it well.

Having a well-planned corn silage harvest is essential if we want to maximize forage quality for the herd in the next year.  On a good day, custom operators chop about 100 acres of corn silage with one chopper.  For a 1,000-cow dairy, each day of chopping results in about a month’s worth of corn silage for the milking herd. 

By Jon Rasmussen, Vita Plus dairy technology specialist
When it comes to dairy cow diets today, we mostly discuss higher corn silage or byproduct diets and not high-haylage diets.  One of the reasons for this shift has been challenges with variation in haylage quality.  Minimizing this variation is key if you are considering additional haylage in a diet or looking to take full advantage of all the knowledge gained in balancing diets for amino acids, fiber digestibility, and starch utilization.

By Pat Hoffman, Vita Plus dairy technical specialist
In some ways, it seems like an unusual concept to write about feeding lactating dairy cows grass forages, but it shouldn’t since they were born to eat grass.  Furthermore, around the world, pasture grasses, grass hay and grass silage are the predominant forages fed to dairy cows. 

But here in the upper Midwest, our forages of choice since the 1940s have been alfalfa and corn silage.  While feeding more cereal grasses, such as triticale, rye or oat silage, seems new to us, it’s certainly nothing new to a dairy cow.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
We’re picking up a lot of dirt with harvest equipment, which is reflected in forage ash content, according to Dr. Dan Undersander, University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The result of high ash content can mean a loss of up to 350 pounds in milk per ton of hay forage dry matter (DM).

By Dr. Michelle Windle, Vita Plus forage products and dairy technical services specialist
Many factors may influence a producer’s decision to grow grass silage, such as a need for somewhere to put manure, a land topography that requires a cover crop, or a limited forage inventory that could use some quality feed to stretch it.  Grass silage can offer many advantages to both the animal and the producer. 

With corn silage harvest just around the corner, now is the perfect time to assess your kernel processor before the wheels get rolling.  In this edition of Forage Foundations, we walk through the areas you should check on your kernel processor and how to inspect them before harvest begins.

Editor’s note:  This article is geared toward systems manufactured by Dohrmann Enterprises, Inc., including the DE-100, DE-55, DE-45, DE-25, or DE-9, DE-8, DE-7 and DE-6.

By Dwain Ewald, Vita Plus Gagetown customer service
Whether it’s a pressure pump applicator on the bailer or at the silo blower, cleanliness is one of the first things I always check before use.  You don’t want to go through all the steps of cleaning and calibrating the system to find out the tips and filters are plugged with sediment and debris still in the tank.