Farm Tidbits- Silage Week

It’s one of our favorite weeks of the year- silage week! We’ve been grazing our beloved ryegrass all winter and in March & April we have moved the cows onto their summer grass pastures.

So, in the last 2 months the ryegrass has put on tremendous growth. We started Monday cutting the grass into windrows, giving it a few hours to dry to about 60% moisture and then we use our chopper to cut it into 1” long pieces and pack it into our silage pit. Just a big pile of grass clippings.

We will cover it with plastic to keep it airtight and the wet grass will ferment to make delicious cow feed.  

Seeing so much above ground growth ensures there is also a crazy amount of root growth to build organic matter. We are following the chopper with a no-till corn planter so the fields will have 1-3 days without a weather appropriate crop growing.

Maximizing growth, maximizes photosynthesis and thus carbon capture. All fun stuff!!!

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