Good harvesting of silage increases the farmers’ income up to € 4,000 (calculated with 100 dairy cows). This approach reduces consverving losses and feedv alue losses, reports Livestock Research Wageningen UR.
Farmers are at great risk of additional losses due to heating and poor conservation. For an average farm with 100 dairy cows the earned income can therefore drease from € 3,000 to € 4,000.
The additional emission of greenhouse gasses due to wrong silaging remains ‘limited’ to almost 1.5%. This is concluded in the Livestock Research study on the effect of silage management on greenhouse gas emissions at farm level.
Figures
Figures show that in practice in the relatively dry years 40-50% of the grass silage has a dry matter content that is too high (> 45%). These have a significant risk of additional losses due to overheating. In relatively wet years more than 60% of the pits had an high ammonia-fraction (> 8).
That also means additional losses in nutritional value. When a company suffered from heating, extra roughage and concentrates had to be purchased to compensate the additional losses poor intake of grass silage. This decreased the company income to almost € 4,000.
