Organic silage is best – the judges decide!

Breeding ewes which are due to lamb in April are almost solely fed on silage

“The cattle are all inside during winter and the ewes come inside two months before lambing in April. This avoids poaching in fields and gives good control of feed management. All feed used is home produced except for a small quantity of organic sheep rolls”.
A good mixture of both arable and rough ground at Knock allows 190 ha to be managed in a seven to eight year rotation, including just two years in spring barley and up to five years in grass or red clover – 6-8 ha is also rented out for carrot production.  
Surplus grass and red clover is cut for silage with the bulk of it stored in two pits, giving a total capacity of 850 tonnes. A small amount of bales are made as a stop gap for the ewes during the months of December and January.
In 2011, a new 600-tonne indoor pit was built with SRDP assistance, which allows quick and easy filling and provides covered storage for 350 bales of straw on top of the silage.
The original pit, which was situated outside and had become redundant, was then converted into horse accommodation in 2004.
This contributes to a small livery business which the Polsons diversified into some years ago, where they now have up to 20 horses on the farm, as well as playing host to several horse events throughout the year.
While this was the Polsons’ first time entering the competition, it seems the process of making the forage is down to the readily available livestock manure, a good balance of livestock types and a well-balanced rotation of spring barley, barley and peas, with grass under sown and then five years of grass. The barley/pea mix is usually taken for whole-crop silage and either put in the pit or baled.
 Apart from the weather being an obvious crucial factor in the run up to the grass harvest at Knock and the fact that nitrogen cannot be applied, the window in which to make silage is more flexible and does not seem to be compromised so much with the maturity as it is with heavy top dressed, ryegrass dominant crops.

A handful of the nutritious silage which gave Roger his first win

“Our silage grown here is definitely enhanced by the extra clover in the mix. The swards have much higher clover content and a third of the area we silage is a red clover mix which gives us the bulk and high protein level” said Rodger, adding that the winning silage entry came back at 23.8% dry matter, 74.8% D-value, an ME of 12.0 MJ/kg DM, 11.7% protein and with a PH of 3.9%.
Despite the fact Roger is limited by the availability of organic certified varieties when buying in seed, a mix made up of 80% ryegrass blends, 10% Timothy and 10% clover, of which some is red clover, comes from both Watson Seeds and RM Welch and Son.
Although it may seem like a disadvantage not being able to apply nitrogen, Roger commented that crops stand a lot better without the artificial nitrogen and that there’s no lodging throughout the silage and the cereals.
“The organic crop is smaller than conventional crops and although we now cut about two weeks later, usually at the beginning of July, palatability and nutritional value have improved due to the clover,” said Roger.

The new pit at Knock which has a capacity of 600 tonnes – now almost empty and ready for this year’s crop

Taking just one cut of silage in the grassland’s five-year stint in the rotation, a strict grazing strategy is followed throughout those years.
New grass is under-sown with the pea/barley mix that is cut as arable silage in August. To keep clean of sheep parasites, the new grass in the first autumn is controlled with feeding cattle.
The following summer, fields are set stocked around 15 ha with ewes and lambs. In that second year, the grass is cut for silage and thereafter applied with muck, to follow on further grazing in year three with feeding cattle, year four with cows and calves and then year five back to sheep or cattle as required.
“We need to establish good ground cover of grass to block out the weeds early in the establishment of pasture. Sheep and silage will keep docks under control for the first couple of years but by year five it is needing to be ploughed again” commented Roger.
The resulting silage in the pits, once clamped and rolled by a tractor, is firstly sheeted with silage film under the polythene sheet which has significantly reduced the waste on the surface.
Due to having had problems with listeria in the past, Roger has found that getting the crop in quickly to avoid waste lines throughout the pit, as well as the PH down to 4% has helped reduce the risk from this.
 “The silage is left to wilt for at least a day, if not two, to ensure that it’s completely dry”, with Roger pointing out that contractors are brought in to lift the silage, while he works in the pit.
Silage fed to stock only passes through a forage wagon, as Roger said he couldn’t justify a TMR system’s substantial investment in machinery and for their scale of operation.

Tucking into a simple and cost-effective ration of silage, straw and barley

“Protein in feed is very important when keeping breeding stock but comes at an expense, so if you can produce what you need, it’s great.
“Cattle are finished between 22 and 26 months and are currently making 70p per kg more than conventional types, with heifers going away at 320-340kg and stots at 400-420kg,” Roger said.
All progeny is taken through to be finished on the farm and both lambs and cattle are sold direct to abattoirs at Perth, Portlethen, Inverurie and Turriff.
So, while there might be less crop output at Knock, compared to when it was farmed conventionally, and even with livestock numbers down too, the Polsons have also seen a huge reduction in input costs and a higher value in their end products.