Can the average homesteader make silage. How and what plant material do you most frequently use? Thanks Ronya Hammonds

-- Ronya Hammonds (surenuffbusted@juno.com), March 21, 2001

Answers

I waited to answer your question in the hopes more knowledeable people would answer, but since it has been a few days I will contribute what very little I know.

My answer to your first question is yes. It seems to me that I have read in other threads or in the magazine about people making silage with grass clippings in plastic garbage bags. Of course, this is grass without any chemicals on it.

Historically, silage was first made not it silos, but in holes in the ground. The technique developed over the years until today we see the familiar silo on the farm.

Look in the following Countryside issues

small-scale silage making page 26 1991 July/Aug 75/4

making silage without a silo page 91 1999 May/June 83/3

Sunflowers: A cash-value crop, and high-quality silage page 61 2000 July/Aug 84/4

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), March 23, 2001.

There are basically two ways to put up wet feeds: haylage and silage.

Haylage is normally a grass-type plant such as clover or alfalfa which are cut and allowed to wilt down before they are gathered and put into air-tight storage. Moisture level is normally between 35 and 55 percent. Lawn clippings (from lawns on which herbicides have not been used) make good haylage as they are young and tender from frequent cuttings.

Silage is basically plants, such as corn, sorghum or sunflowers, which are put into an air-tight srorage as soon as possible after cutting. Normally they are blown chopped up into a chopper box and, when full, taken directly to the silo.

Most of these are large scale operations, with silos, harvesting, loading and unloading equipment required.

What can be done on a homestead scale?

Largest problem won’t be gathering, but air-tight storage. Yes, wilted grass clippings can be packed into double plastic bags, but handling them is probably good training for getting rid of a dead body. They just have a life of their own and go every which way.

Consider instead pickle barrels sold at many feed stores. They are about 35-gallons with a screw-on lid.

Wilted grasses, etc., (haylage) can be packed in by someone standing in the barrel and packing as they are loaded. When full, the lid is put on and they are stacked or stored in a shed or someplace.

Your harvesting equipment here need not be more than a bagging lawnmower. When the bag becomes full, dump it in a short windrow. By the time you are through cutting, likely the first windrow will be ready for packing.

For corn, such as sweet corn stalks, if you have access to a yard chipper then can be put through it first, then packed. Here (or with grasses) between layers you could add whole kernel corn, which will absorb some of the moisture and help the protein level of this silage.

The pickle barrels should be reusable for many years so their cost will be spread out. Make sure the seal is air-tight though. Perhaps a square of plastic onto which the lid is screwed.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), March 23, 2001.