Forage Foundations

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist Dairy producers have successfully harvested, stored and fed high moisture corn for many years. By now, most have the routine down pat. But when things go wrong, it’s often the lack of high moisture that causes problems.  Naturally, too much moisture can be a challenge as well,

By Jon Rasmussen, Vita Plus technology specialist Trying to get a handle on corn silage processing while the choppers are moving has gained a great deal of interest in the recent years. A few considerations can help make the evaluation a little less subjective. Start by gathering a fresh corn silage sample in a 32-ounce

By Chris Wacek-Driver, Vita Plus forage program manager, with Kyle Taysom, Dairyland Laboratories, Inc. The trend of feeding greater levels of corn silage to dairy cows and an influx of new processor designs has heightened dairy industry interest in determining optimal kernel processing.  While it's certainly not the sole factor that determines optimal dietary digestibility

By Emily Templeton, Vita Plus forage summer intern If it’s not one thing, it’s another when it comes to the up-keep on machinery around the farm.  It’s essential that we take good care of our equipment so it can last longer and we can save a few dollars down the road.  But are we looking

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist The strategy of applying fungicides to growing corn has received a lot of attention in recent years and producers have been asking themselves, “Should we get on board with this or is it a waste of my crop input dollars?” Like many new technologies, the answer seems

By Jon Rasmussen, Vita Plus technology specialist We know that packing density of corn silage is affected by a multitude of factors, including moisture, cut length, weight and time of packing tractors, delivery rate to the bunker or pile, and certainly processing methods.  But how does Shredlage® compare to conventionally processed silage in terms of

By Dr. Michelle Windle, Vita Plus forage products & dairy technical service specialist We’re seeing a growing interest in estimating corn silage processing scores (CSPS) while chopping instead of after the fact so that we can make appropriate adjustments in the field.  Some of this growing interest is also due to higher commodity prices as

By Jon Urness, national forage specialist Getting it right when it comes to corn silage harvest and storage has become more and more critical as it’s often the dominant forage in today’s dairy rations.  And you get just one chance.  You don't get any “do-overs” or “mulligans” when it comes to putting up a year’s

Chris Wacek-Driver, Vita Plus forage program manager Alfalfa is a particularly challenging crop to ensile due to naturally occurring compounds (primarily acids and proteins) that effectively buffer the crop.  Practically speaking, this means it takes more acid - and thus more sugar - to reach the correct pH endpoint.  At moistures of 65 percent or

Vita Plus Forage Team Winter 2014 seemed like it would never end.  Inevitably, that means that the upcoming planting and haylage season will fly by all too quickly.  As you wait out the last days of cool temperatures and wet fields, take a few minutes to clean up your applicators and review inoculant mixing procedures. 

Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist At every Vita Plus training session, meeting or other opportunity, we remind folks that, to achieve the best chance of a good silage fermentation, we need to start with a crop that is harvested at the proper moisture, maturity and particle size, then pack that feed to achieve

Are we pasteurizing the bugs in inoculant tank mixes?  That was the question Dr. Owen Mickley, Vita Plus dairy specialist, posed during the heat of last year's corn silage harvest in central Ohio. Just a couple weeks earlier, Mickley hosted a custom harvester meeting for about a dozen chopper operators. The subject of inoculant tank

Diane Beels, Vita Plus Loyal agronomist Central Wisconsin’s progress report for the spring of 2014 is “quiet as a mouse” at this time.  We were getting down to the last of our snow banks when the rain turned to snow again.  We have not had any tillage work in the fields, just preparation for it. 

When it comes to the latest technology in corn silage processing, Shredlage® has dominated the headlines in the farm papers. This new approach to processing corn silage - which emphasizes not only the kernel portion of corn silage but also the stover portion - shows a lot of promise. A number of dairy producers from

 A half-hour in the shop on a cold winter day could prevent big trouble and delay next summer when you’ve got trucks lined up, packing tractors fueled, and forage that’s ready to harvest…NOW! Many forage chopper owners take advantage of the inoculant applicator technology offered by Dohrmann Enterprises, Inc., specifically the DE-1000 and DE-1010

To manage feed costs, we’re looking to maximize the investment of every pound we feed.  For dairy farmers, a big part of that goal is making sure we get as much energy as possible out of our corn silage as opposed to that energy passing through to the back end. Lately, we’ve heard a lot