Page 6 - Agrisales Magazine - February 2020 Web

February 2020 Volume 177

E EN GEBRUIKTE TOERUSTING

Paul + 27 83 447 3379
(Northwest, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga & Limpopo)
Basie + 27 82 888 1877 Staal meester
(Natal, North- East- & Western Cape)
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HEAD OFFICE 2 Coetzee Street, Hartbeesfontein | PO Box 71, Hartbeesfontein, 2600 Finance
+ 27 18 431 2171/2 enquiries@staalmeester.co.za www.staalmeester.co.za Available
NEW AND USED EQUIPMENT / NUWE EN GEBRUIKTE TOERUSTING
THE IMPORTANCE OF SILAGE FOR
PROVIDING QUALITY FEED

Nowadays all livestock farmers should know about the importance of silage for providing quality
feed to cattle and for keeping up their diet throughout the year. It does not matter if livestock is
for dairy or beef, particularly maize or sorghum silage is essential if the farmer wants to succeed
and have profitability. And in recent years with rainfall patterns changing and severe draughts in
some regions, silage making is more important than ever.
But not all silage is the same. It is important to take some precautions on silage making in order to JF C120 Single Row Forage Harvester
have quality final material and not have a lot of waste that must be thrown away in order not to
damage cow production or health. It is especially important to look at some details at harvesting Cut and chops products such as maize, sorghum, sunflower, sugar cane, and all
time and the final storage of the crop. types of forage grasses.
A good quality precision forage harvester should be used during harvesting in order to ensure a
good chop quality. The particle size distribution resulting from the harvesting should obey the
table below:
PORE SIZE PARTICLE SIZE CORN
SCREEN (INCHES) (INCHES) SILAGE
Upper Sieve
(19mm) 0.75 > 0.75 3 to 8 %
Middle Sieve 0.31 03.1 t0 0.75 45 to 65 %
(8mm)
Lower Sieve 0.16 0.16 to 0.31 20 to 30 %
(4mm) JF 92 Z6 Single Row Forage Harvester
Bottom Pan < 0,16 < 10 % JF’s exclusive Z shaped knives with double function, chopping precision and
The test for finding out if the silage obeys the ranges above could be done using a set of throwing power.
screens called Penn State Particle Separator.
A silage with particle size distribution according to the table above will ensure a good compaction
in silage bunker or bag and consequently will lead to less disposal of bad silage when feeding out.
So it is essential to harvest the crop using a precision forage harvester, and not just a normal
forage harvester. As example of them you will find the models JF C120, JF Double C240 Evolution
or JF 1600 AT. They were all designed to give you the largest variety of chop sizes and high control
and precision on the particle size distribution.
Another very important issue on silage making is how you store the silage. This is a point that
NEW AND USED EQUIPMENT / NUWE
is generally not given attention by farmers, but a good storage can lead to much better silage
nutrients for your cattle and also save a great deal of money.
JF C240 Evolution Double Row Forage Harvester
Most silage is kept on pits or over the ground, but a new technology is bringing much better
efficiency on storage to farmers. Storing silage in silobags or Featuring 2 rotors with 24 blades with “C” technology for a faster chopping process,
“sausages” is getting more and more popular and leading to better silage quality, decreasing more uniform particles and grain cracking without the need of additional devices.
substantially losses due to bad compaction and long periods of time of silage in contact with air.
For example, JF Silomaster forage bagger can quickly put fresh chopped material into bags
without the need of extra tractors running over the silage pile. This will also decrease the time of
exposure of forage to oxygen, leading to lower loss of dry matter and lower silage temperature.
The bags can preserve 60 to 90 tons of silage up to 18 months, depending on the bag quality.
Recently more and more farmers
are calculating the lower loss
of dry matter when preserving
silage in bags, thus they can feed
more cattle with the same area
planted or they can decrease the
area they plant and still have the JF 1600 AT Row Independent Forage Harvester
same amount of feed for The chopping system has a powerful rotor with 15 big knives with “C” technology,
their cattle. resulting in unmatchable chopping uniformity.

We have over 100 different agricultural products in stock to suit any
JF Silage Master Bagger farmer’s need: Call us today or visit www.staalmeester.co.za

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