www.AmericanAgriculturist.com - June 2008
Hay & Forage
18
Hard-packing doubles your dollars
EEING is believing. The results of
a two-year study of silage packing
on 24 New York farms convinced
four cousins to change their bunker
management practices.
“I’m extremely tight on land, so I need
to make sure [the crops from] every
acre end up in the cows,” reports Brad
Cates of Co-Vale Holsteins, Preble N.Y.
“This project really showed us what to
do [in bunker management] and put a
value on doing it. A $1,500 investment
[in weights] almost immediately returned $6,000 in feed saving and storage
costs that will repeat year to year for no
additional input.”
Cates’ cousins John, Nate and Tom
Currie operate Currie Valley Dairy 10
miles away at Tully, N.Y. In total, the
two farms harvest 9,700 tons of alfalfa
and corn dry matter to feed nearly 2,500
cows and heifers.
John Currie says, “You can easily
concentrate on harvesting and miss the
importance of packing great silage.
“The research shows it pays to add
extra [packing] tractors loaded with as
much weight as possible on the bunker.
The benefits: less spoilage, higherquality feed and less bunker silo space
needed.”
The research project these cousins
refer to involved a grant to Cornell
University’s PRO-Dairy Program by New
PHOTO BY JOHN CONWAY
By KARA LYNN DUNN
S
HEAVY ROLLERS: Curries’ larger silage packers packed a total of 8,000 pounds
of concrete onto their three-point hitches, keeping up with the harvester and supercompressing silage for better storage and feed quality.
Key Points
■ Effective packing can boost silage density
and storage by 12.5%.
■ The Curries save more than $15,200 on
haylage storage alone.
■ Using one or two tractors without weights
isn’t good enough.
York Farm Viability Institute. Project
leader and PRO-Dairy educator John
Conway estimates that farms adopting
more effective packing practices could
reap an average 12.5% improvement in
silage density and $2,231 in forage con-
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served per 100 cows and young stock.
The right pack
Bunker samples of brown midrib corn
silage this winter at Co-Vale showed
density well above the acceptable average of 15 pounds per cubic foot.
Silage density rates were 16.2, 20.3 and
22.1 pounds respectively, at 6 feet, 10
feet and 14 feet from the top.
Cates says, “Buying a self-propelled
chopper sped up our harvesting time.
Now we use two tractors with 4-ton
weights, a blade and a bunker defacer.”
The added tractor weight keeps the
packing blade low, says Conway. And it
helps build a density gain of about 1.2
pounds per cubic foot of dry matter.
The Curries increased their packing
tractors to three. The two larger tractors pack an extra 8,000 pounds of
concrete between them on three-point
hitches plus front-mounted blades.
The payback comes here
John Currie reports investing $13,650
in equipment, but calculates a $21,580
return in corn and hay silage quantity
and quality.
Better and extended use of existing
storage space forestalls capital investment in new silo capacity, adds Conway.
He estimates the Curries are saving
$15,207 a year on haylage storage,
alone.
“The stable, denser silage stays
fresher for the cows even though we
feed it out more slowly,” says Cates.
Conway says, “The carry-over ton-
Weight tractors
with extra care
M
OST tractor ballasting guidelines are for optimizing traction
and minimizing wheel slippage.
Proper weighting for packing tractors doesn’t fit neatly into them. But
working on slopes and loose surface
materials requires careful driving
plus keeping a low center of gravity.
“The concrete block used at CoVale Holsteins appears to be well
below the maximum purchased rearballast package weights,” reports
John Conway, Cornell Dairy-Pro
educator. “It’s also well below the
weight-carrying capacity of the threepoint hitch. In all cases, the added
rear weight is counterbalancing the
heavy Grouser blade up front.”
When calculating the weight you
can add, it’s wise to follow two rules:
Stay under the weight specifications in your tractor’s manual. Check
with your tractor dealer for extra
weighting recommendations.
By John Vogel
nage of 387 tons dry matter of BMR corn
silage was unprecedented, and represents one season’s worth of dry matter
gain. If the dynamic continues in 2008,
Cates could see a carryover of approximately 28%.”
Conway is developing an easy-touse cost-benefit-analysis chart of silo
packing options. It’ll be available this fall
through Cornell Cooperative Extension
and feed dealerships. For more details,
contact Conway at 607-547-2536.
Dunn writes from her farm in
Mannsville, N.Y.
N
YFVI is a farmer-led nonprofit
that invests in innovative projects to increase the success of ag
production enterprises, protect farmbased natural resources and produce measurable farm-level results.
For more information, visit the Web
site at www.nyfvi.org.
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