Forage Foundations

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

Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist Some dairy producers in the eastern U.S., particularly in areas of eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, regularly fall-seed rye and triticale as mainstays of their lactating dairy rations. Conversely, here in the upper Midwest, such crops are generally regarded as emergency forages reserved for times when

By Jerry Ruetten, Vita Plus Dodgeville dairy nutritionist In southwest Wisconsin, despite a lack of rain in August, soybean and corn grain production were about average to a little above average.  This fall, corn silage ran about 25 tons per acre and starch has varied between 25 and 42 percent, with the average being in

   Click to download presentation In its third year, the U.S. Custom Harvester Chopper Challenge continues to pit self-propelled harvesters against one another in the same field. For the 2012 challenge, five choppers cut down a 1/4-mile field length. The corn was planted in 38-inch rows; the choppers made two rounds and covered about

   Click to download presentation Applicators are a critical tool for anyone looking to apply inoculants at harvest. At the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting, Dan Dohrmann of Dohrmann Enterprises, Inc. shared advancements in applicator technology and general equipment maintenance. There are three basic types of applicators, he said, granular, conventional and low volume/concentrate.

  Click to download presentation Riverview LLP, headquartered in Minnesota, milks 45,000 cows at seven different sites. Putting up forage at this scale requires a well-oiled machine. Andy Hacker oversees trucking, commodities and forage harvesting for Riverview. During his presentation at the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting, he said it all begins with core values.

  Investing in microbial inoculants can pay off through improved fermentation and aerobic stability.  However, properly managing those inoculants is key to getting the biggest value back from that investment. That’s according to Michelle Windle, a graduate student working with Dr. Limin Kung in the Dairy Nutrition and Silage Fermentation Lab at the University of

  Click to download presentation Over the past five years, U.S. harvesters have put up 109.9 million tons of corn silage, according to Dr. Keith Bolsen, professor emeritus with Kansas State University and private forage consultant. That means that corn silage is a $7 billion industry today.  Compare that to the $2 billion industry of

  Click to download presentation John Brantsen, a Vita Plus dairy nutritionist, remembers the 2011 harvest season well.  In his area of northwest Iowa, the late summer and fall brought high temperatures and a lot of wind.  He said harvesters in the area were racing the weather, trying to get corn silage harvested before it

  Click to download presentation It’s bound to happen…corn silage harvest is in full swing, harvesters are rolling, trucks are busy hauling and the pack tractors are moving back and forth when the nutritionist pulls in the driveway. They get out of the truck, walk up to the bunker, take a look at the freshly

  Click to download presentation Custom harvesters know that a high corn silage processing score (CSPS) is a top goal for dairy producers as they’re looking to get the most energy value out of today’s expensive feeds.  The catch is that estimating CSPS in the field is not an easy or consistent task. Dr. Brian

   Photo: (left to right) Bruce Dankers, Dankers Enterprises, Inc., Chuck Fahey, Prairieland Dairy, LLC, and Aaron Kutz, Kutz Dairy, LLC Harvesting corn as Shredlage™ is so new that there hasn’t been time for a lot of research to be conducted. Dr. Randy Shaver, with the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has done a few trials,

  Click to download presentation Roger Olson of Shredlage, LLC has extensive experience in nutrition consulting with dairy herds.  According to Olson, anytime something was going wrong with a farm’s nutrition program, he observed “cigarette butts” in the manure.  That is, he noticed the round, blunt chunks associated with conventional corn silage. A few years

   Click to download presentation Dairy producers have expressed interest in feeding corn as Shredlage™. At the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Dr. Randy Shaver has been conducting feeding trials to see what makes it tick inside the cow. He shared his results with those looking to put up feed for dairies at the

Forage cannot be made better from the point it leaves the field, therefore our goal as an industry is to start with the best quality forage possible and preserve it with excellent silage management, said Dr. Limin Kung, University of Delaware. Harvesters and producers should have two goals in making fermented feeds. At the front

One simple principle makes Lactobacillus buchneri 40788 stand out against other bacterial forage inoculants. According to Bob Charley with Lallemand Animal Nutrition, that simple principle is a commitment to quality. Buchneri 40788 is the only FDA-approved, research-patented bacteria known to improve aerobic stability of high moisture corn and forages. When used with proper crop management,