As we enter the spring harvest season for small grain forages and hay crops, many of these first cuttings will be ensiled as hayleage or baleage.  Producing the highest quality storage forage begins when the first piece of equipment enters the field.  Timing your forage mowing is the first critical step in producing quality forage.  Each forage species has a window to maximize yield and quality.  For most species of small grains and grasses, the best time is the early boot stage.  This is when the seed head can be felt in the flag leaf stem, but prior to seed head emergence.  For our legume species, we want to begin harvest when we see the first bloom in the field.

The next important benchmark is baling or chopping at the proper moisture level.  The ideal moisture content is dependent on your storage method.  Wrapped bales should be between 40% and 60%, with a target of 50 – 55%.  Chopped forages stored in a bunker or bag should be 60 -70% moisture.  If the forage is too wet, you can have production of unfavorable volatile fatty acids such as butyric acid which will limit the amount of forage that can be fed.  If moisture is too dry, you can have an incomplete fermentation that will reduce the length of time the forage can be stored.

Your field activities can impact the quality of the forages that are stored.  Forage dry matter and crude protein content can be reduced from each machine you use in the harvesting process.  Mowing (4% DM, 0.7% CP), Drying (5% DM, 0.9% CP), Raking (25% DM, 0.5% CP), Tedding (8% DM, 0.5% CP), and Baling (9% DM, 1.7% CP) all contribute to a reduction in quantity and quality.  Most of the losses are related to the moisture content at baling/chopping.  The drier the forage the greater the opportunity for loss, but also if your rake or tedder is too aggressive you can get high losses and greater introduction of foreign material.  If the ash content, as reported on your forage analysis, is 11% or higher, you should look at your rakes and tedders.

Baled and wrapped forages should be baled as tight as possible to exclude oxygen from the bale’s interior.  It is also recommended that the bales are wrapped with a minimum of 6 layers of plastic wrap within 24 hours of baling.  Those forages stored in a bunker silo should be thoroughly packed to exclude oxygen.  Bunkers should be compacted to achieve a bulk density of at least 44lbs. of as-fed forage per cubic foot, or 15 lbs. per cubic foot on a dry matter basis.  The University of Wisconsin offers a forage density calculator to help producers know the packing time necessary to achieve the targets (https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/forage/harvest).

Finally, you should test the final product pH and have a fermentation analysis performed on all of your ensiled forages.  Ideally, the final pH of ensiled forage should be below a pH of 5.0.  The final Lactic acid concentration should be a minimum of 3% and the Butyric acid concentration should be 0.1% or less.  The last critical benchmark is that the percentage of crude protein as ammonia nitrogen should be 15% or less.

The OSU Extension and the Department of Animal Science are actively recruiting participants for two research studies.  The first focuses on heat abatement strategies for dairies.  The study is directed by Dr. Grazyne Tresoldi, Assistant Professor of Animal Welfare, and is looking for operations that house 400 or more lactating cows in freestalls.  Participants will be asked to participate in a 30-minute interview with the research team and allow observation of their heat abatement practices, production records, and cow comfort measures.  In return, participants will receive a free heat stress evaluation of their operation.  Interest farms can contact Dr. Tresoldi at tresoldi.3@osu.edu.

The second project is a survey of soil nitrogen being coordinated by the OSU Extension.  This is a statewide project where we are observing soil nitrogen throughout the growing season.  There is no cost or time commitment to the producer.  We are asking for each participant to identify a field that will be planted to corn where we can take soil samples to be analyzed for available nitrogen at three times during the year: Pre-sidedress, at harvest/blacklayer, and the following spring prior to any field operations.  Interested participants can contact John at the OSU Extension office in Wayne County for more information or to enroll (yost.77@osu.edu)