Last month we discussed the “Secrets of silage”. This is a follow-up article on the equipment needed to make good silage.

Silage must be made at the stage when plant material has exactly the right moisture content. This allows the farmer a short window period during which the process of ensilaging must be completed. Therefore, it is essential that equipment used for silage making must be efficient and reliable.

Forage harvester

Maize or forage sorghum is cut with a forage harvester, chopped and blown into a wagon. There are silage harvesters available for cutting one or more rows row by row, and others that are row independent to cut irrigated maize from any side of the field.

Some silage harvesters chop material with blades that are mounted in a circular form on a disc, while others are designed with blades mounted on a drum. The straighter the path that material follows through the shredder, the less tractor power is required; and the heavier the flywheel effect of the shredder, the smoother the load on the transmission system.

It is essential that a silage harvester must cut the material cleanly and tidily and that the length of the chopped material must be adjustable according to the farmer’s needs. It should be easy to sharpen the cutter blades, and the harvester’s chute must be adjustable from the tractor cab to blow material accurately into the silage wagon.

Most silage harvesters are drawn behind, but to one side of the tractor, but for large fields there are huge self-propelled silage harvesters. There are few farmers who make enough silage to justify the cost of acquiring such a self-propelled harvester, so they are mostly used by silage contractors.

A more affordable option than the self-propelled harvesters, is the large, row-independent harvester mounted to special tractors that can run equally well forward and backward because their seats can turn around to control the tractor with a full set of reverse controls. The advantage of this option is that the farmer has a formidable self-propelled silage harvester during the silage season, and the rest of the year he has a useful, fully-fledged tractor to use for any other work.

Silage wagon

It is important that cut silage must be transported quickly and promptly to the silage bunker or ditch so that the whole process can run smoothly. Various types of silage wagons are available, but a suitable silage wagon should satisfy the following requirements:

• It should be spacious and able to carry a good load at a time so that unnecessary trips can be avoided.
• The silage trailer’s tires have to be tough enough so maizes talks cannot puncture them, and wide enough to avoid getting stuck in soft ground or compact the soil unnecessarily.
• The sides should be high enough to maintain a good volume and the side towards which the silage is blown, should be raised to eliminate waste.
• The silage wagon should download the material quickly and easily, without wasting labour or time in the silage pit. Some types of silage wagons are high lifting tippers so that the moist material can easily slide down its smooth belly, while others have chain drives to push the material out.
• It must be well balanced so that it can drive over the silage pile without toppling over.

A useful development is a manure spreader which can also double as a silage wagon by removing the manure spreading mechanism during the silage season. This means that the farmer can acquire two useful implements for the price of one.

Silage remover

Where animals are extensively fed with a ration that includes silage, a useful tool is a feed mixer capable of taking silage out of that silage bunker. This is a self-propelled feed mixer with an arm equipped with grabbers and a conveyor belt for collecting silage from the pit to be weighed and mixed with the other feed components. Such a silage remover saves time and eliminates waste by preventing silage from falling on the ground or deteriorati due to unnecessary exposure.