SilageManager

Forage quality

Silage (forage) quality is one of the most important factors to consider when making nutritional decisions and formulating dairy rations. The more we know about silage quality the better the nutritional solution.

Traditional measurements of forage quality focus on quantitative values like crude protein, starch, sugar, NDF etc. These provide useful information but don’t give a true indication how the forage will breakdown in the rumen and influence cow performance.

F2M nutrients in SilageManager provide additional information on qualitative measures resulting in more accurate assessment of forage quality and the impact on the cow as well as improved efficiency of forage utilisation – increased milk from forage.

Dry NIR forage analysis

The current system used for forage analysis throughout UK is wet NIR - quick and relatively cheap. It uses a single point of light shone through the sample which can miss some elements. The moisture can also cause some variation in analysis. The system works reasonably well but moisture causes some problems - reduced accuracy of analysis.

ForFarmers offers a dry NIR option where samples are dried overnight, ground up, put in a vial and scanned from all sides.

The benefits are:

• Drying and grinding gives a much more representative sample to analyse and more accurate results.
• More accurate description of types of fibre in the silage and therefore more accurate rationing.
• Energy analysed using more accurate calibrations resulting in more efficient use of feeds.
• Protein degradability is more accurately measured enables more effective use of other protein sources.
• More comprehensive database of silages in calibration.

This new process allows us to find the best fit of complementary feeds to match your farm's forages and results in more efficient performance.