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- Baleage, haylage, silage.
In the last few years more
producers have elected to
harvest high-moisture forages.
Today, we're gonna talk
with Tim Schnakenberg,
Regional Agronomist, for
University of Missouri extension.
Tim, tell us a little bit
about the term, haylage.
- Well, wrapped baleage is a way to make
silage out of a hay bale.
And it's revolutionized a lot of our
haying process, these days.
It's also provided a barn for us,
that we wouldn't have otherwise.
So, we can actually store hay outside,
we can harvest within 24 hours,
versus having, sometimes,
three to four, or five days
in order to get hay harvested.
- What crops do you
see most commonly used?
- Well, you can wrap just about anything,
and make some silage out of
it, if the moisture is right.
More commonly, though, we'll
see wheat or rye being used.
We'll see alfalfa used in this way,
but you can also use fescue and
orchard grass, just as well.
- You mentioned moisture there.
Which moisture would you like to see,
if we're trying to put up our haylage?
- We're pretty comfortable recommending
somewhere between, 45 and 60%.
You can go a little on the
low side of that scale,
and sometimes even lower
than that, with legumes.
Grasses tend to do better on
the higher end of that scale.
- Does haylage, itself, improve
the quality of the crop,
or just preserve the crop?
- There's a concept out there,
that it's gonna actually,
improve the crop, or
make the quality better.
Not necessarily the case, it
will preserve the quality.
You can't put junk into
a bale and expect to get
quality out of it.
It's gotta be good quality going in,
but the difference is, you end
up preserving that quality.
- What equipment might a
producer need to add to his farm,
to harvest silage?
- So many of our producers are
already have the equipment,
except they need to have
some kind of a wrapper.
Many of our balers, our modern balers,
can bale wetter silage
hay, and so, it's a matter
of having a wrapper now,
to get the job done.
- Thanks, Tim!
For Makin' Hay Minute,
this is Bryan Setzer.
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- Hope you enjoyed this
episode of Makin' Hay Minute,
please check out some
of these other videos,
or find us at makinhay.com.
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