Seymour Farms - Producer trial

 

Connecting Farmers To Soil Health

Hello, Friends.

We hope everyone is having a safe & enjoyable harvest. This week we wanted to showcase a demonstration trial done by Seymour Farms from Darlingfrod, Mb last week.

The Goal For The Demonstration: Cut the Full Season Cover with a disc-bine & with a swather. Bale. Measure losses (shelling) of cutting with disc-bine vs. swather. Compare through a feed test/analysis once the ensiling process is complete.

Field Observations: Seeded the Full Season Cover on June 5th. (no applied nitrogen) A month prior to this, cool-season plants (forage peas, barley) dominated the canopy. In the last week or so with the hot weather, the warm season plants (sorghum, millet) started to really take off.

Seymourfielddemo.jpg
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cutting method

Disc-bine vs. swather

discbine vs. swather

farmer feedback

The comments/quotes below are from the Seymour Bros.


"Definitely the best for cutting is the disc-bine (if someone would have picked the stones lol). I ran it a bit slower and was shelling even less then when brett did that pass. I think the tests will be close."

"I am thinking it is a good thing we have those crimpers backed right off"

"Disc-bine by where we were standing for the tour is 45 on one side 55-65 on the other. Swaths get drier up the hill. I would say one day at this stage is about right to start because it isn't a fast process" 

Disc-bine

Disc-bine

Swather

Swather

Wide Silage Window

Our Observation - what did we learn?

The Seymour’s left their Full Season Cover much later than the majority of farms that took the blend for silage. The cereals were almost completely mature and yet their moisture was still ideal. (between 45-55% with 1 day dry down)

This speaks to what we had discussed in our prior silage timing email. By allowing sunlight to the soil surface, this gives legumes room to grow but also stay vegetative (maintain high moisture content)

*This means our window for ideal silage conditions is much wider.

By leaving the Full Season an additional 1-2 weeks, the warm season grasses (sorghum & millet) were able to grow above the canopy and greatly increase the overall energy in the feed. (the value of C4 plants) As well as increasing total biomass per acre.

baling.jpg

Full Season cover

the re-growth/grazing value

A great catch of annual ryegrass, clover, and hairy vetch that should provide a highly palatable protein/energy feed stuff for grazing cattle!

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Thanks For Reading

To learn more about how we can help incorporate plant diversity into your operation:

With Gratitude,

Covers & Co. Team

Joseph Gardiner, Travis Avery, Mark Fallis, Owen Taylor


 
Covers & Co.