I know I have posted similar posts to this one before, but there is obviously still such a lot of confusion about the subject that it does no harm to bring it up again.
Sitting watching Breakfast over my breakfast a few minutes ago the same old thing came up, as it does every year. There is a very serious shortage of grass this year because of the hot weather. All farmers managed to get their first crop silage in alright, but then the rain stopped and the grass grew only slowly which meant that second crop was sparse and not very productive. And after that cut the grass just has not grown again as anyone who has passed acre after acre of brown, seemingly dead, grass will tell you. So there is no likelihood of a third crop unless there is a drastic change in the weather over the first few weeks of this month.
This morning a reporter was standing in front of what was obviously a silage clamp and showing how the farmer was breaking in to it to feed his dairy cows. But he called it 'straw'. So here, once again, is the information.
1. Straw. Straw is brittle, shortish stalks left over when corn crops (barley, wheat, oats etc) are harvested. The stalks this year will be shorter than usual because corn crops generally are yielding poorly, again due to dry weather. Straw is baled (at one time it was burnt on the field), stored and used for winter bedding and also for food for cattle in winter.
2. Hay. Before the 'invention' of silage all grass fields were harvested for hay. At one time one crop a year was all that farmers got - now fields are cut, fertilised intensively, cut again. Many farmers no longer make hay, preferring to put all grass down as silage. Anyone with horses needs hay for feed so some farmers who live in 'horsey' areas tend to make hay to sell in winter. My farmer always made a bit of hay 'for old times sake' and a few local horse owners would buy it off him in winter. It is usually baled in small bales which are easier to handle and stored in barns.
3. Silage. These days this is the main crop for almost all farmers. Round here there are still a lot of dairy farmers as we do not live in arable farm country. Silage is usually stored in one of two ways. The grass can be cut, gathered up quite quickly (you will see the forage wagons in the field as the machine picks up the cut grass and 'blows' it into the wagon) and then put into a clamp, covered over with plastic (often weighted down with old tyres) and left to ferment. Alternatively it can also be cut, left to dry out and then baled and wrapped in plastic to be stored in piles - usually pale green or black plastic.
I think I have got all that right but Rachel, who, coming from a farming background is much more knowledgeable than I am (I only married into farming twenty five years ago although from a country background - I can remember back to when they made hay stacks from hay) will put us right.
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26 comments:
What is haylage then please, I have heard this term in farming circles.
I'll go along with all those definitions, they're pretty much the same here. I might just mention that straw is very useful for putting on vege garden beds or pots to retain moisture during a hot summer.
Perhaps that reporter hasn't spent a lot of time on farms.
Alphie
Silage is my favourite.
If nothing else Pat, your post has identified how farming habits can differ around the country. Corn straw has little nutritional value and is therefore mainly used as bedding, whereas barley and oats straw, for whatever reason, does have a nutritional value and therefore commands a far better price and market. Barley straw is also used a lot these days in cleaning the water in ponds and lakes, something in it kills off green algae. Hay is a bigger crop around here on Sheppey than silage and this year has produced a bumper first crop, after a wet Spring followed by warmth saw the grass accelerate, but only for the one cut. Rape straw is also a commercial product that has taken off in recent years and a lot here is sold to the Dutch. All hay here is baled in either the large rolls or bales, never in the small, old-fashioned bales. It sells for around £40-50 a bale.
Maize seems to have replaced traditional silage recently. It is sown in the Spring, left to grow well into the late autumn as game bird cover and then cut and shredded and fed to the cattle in their winter stock yards.
Maize grown in East Anglia, of which you will see many 1000s of acres, is grown for green energy and not animal feed and is taken to the bio-fuel plants. Government subsidies are available on this. Wheat, sugar-beet and rape are also grown to a lesser extent for the same purpose now. Straw was rarely burned, it was baled and either used at home or sold; it was the stubbles that were burned before the land was cultivated for the next crop. This was stopped when we were accused of destroying the planet.
You would think the reporter would have done a little research before filming his piece. I remember haymaking and watching the ricks slowly being built. Wishing more lovely rain for all farmers and growers.
My childhood summers seemed to be spent moving bales of hay or straw around. I wasn't able to throw them up, but could move them around on top of the trailer or the hay barns. My relatives quickly realised that I was not afraid of heights, so when they wanted a bale off the top, I was sent up the rickety ladder to throw one down. What I remember most is not the weight, but how the baler twine cut into my hands. And the dust.
I remember you writing about this before. I didn't know what silage was. So many different tearms
Like you I hope we all get more rain.
cheers, parsnip
You might enjoy seeing the Amish baling hay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAnnSJkraUY
Many people make this mistake between hay and straw. Here, straw is what is left over after wheat is harvested. It is used only for bedding. The fields around us were planted in winter wheat this past year and just recently got combined and then the very big rectangular bales were loaded up on wagons and taken away.
Hay is used for feed and farmers are able to get a second cutting now. Most hay is baled in big round bales. I don't think I've seen a small hay bale (the type we used to be able to lift and break apart to feed dairy cows, or make forts with in the mow) for years and years.
The rule of thumb that I tell "city people" is hay is green and straw is yellow. Of course, that's just Canada, there are probably lots of variation in feed practises elsewhere.
Thanks for this post. You brought back happy childhood memories! -Jenn
Your rule of thumb for hay and straw is fine Jenn but not fool proof. As all corn at a big stage of its growth is green I find people still confused about straw and hay. My rule of thumb is that hay is grass and straw is corn storks. Grass can then be described fully in laymen's terms and is not the total mystery to people that corn is. Corn produces another mystery because people think that corn is a variety of corn in itself when, of course, corn is the collective term for cereal crops like wheat and barley in the UK. In fact the major problem about getting the description of hay and straw correct is the non-farm dwellers do not think it is important in the first place and have no intention of learning anyway.
We had a lot more hay grown and cut this year. They are starting to harvest the Barley which is the favourite crop with the farmers. Does seem very early to see Combines in the fields.
Due to such a late spring, and then jumping straight into hot summer, we've only been able to cut once. Most rain showers that do come up go around us so the grass hasn't grown much for a second cutting, which we'll start tomorrow. In past years we silaged the first cutting and wrapped the bales in white plastic but not this year. Maybe in late fall we can get another crop and silage it. I think we've only put up around 300 bales which is not nearly enough. Last year we put up around 1400. I find it interesting that half way around the world things a quite similar.
I've just rung up my local arable farmer friend here and asked him what he grows each year and he answered wheat and barley, rotated with rape. I asked him what the collective name for the first two was and he answered cereals.
Lots of useful bits of information here. Thanks to everyone.
And there is a 4th 5th & 6th option.
Haylage, inbetween hay and silage. Grass cut and semi dried like hay but then made into big bales and wrapped. A popular option for Horse's and Sheep as it contains more protein than hay and it is not so weather dependent to get a good crop.
Whole crop silage. Cereals like Wheat and Barley cut before it is ripe and put into a clamp to ferment like grass silage. Has a higher dry matter and can increase milk yield in dairy cows. Also farmers can chose to cut as whole crop if they need extra winter feed or leave it and harvest later for grain and straw.
Maize silage/whole crop. Newer varieties of maize can now be grown in most parts of the country and is harvested before it is ripe like other whole crops. It is harvested using a direct cut forager and therefore doesn't need to be cut and left to wilt like grass silage.
Most dairy farms now use a combination of most of the above to give the cows a better diet to produce better yields in milk.
Anyway hope you are well and enjoying the summer.
Thank you for this educational post Pat! I've always had a little confusion about what silage was.
Kitchy came up with some interesting information, some of which I wasn't aware of.
The rape straw on the field by me was big baled this year, don't know if it is going for bio-fuel
One source of confusion it seems to me is the use of the word "corn" to mean grain or cereal crops. Most commonly people think of corn as the plant bearing ears of corn, not ears of wheat or barley, etc.
Here, hay is dried grass (baled and used for feed) - straw is the hollow stalks of grain crops (baled mostly in small bales, used for bedding, etc.) and corn is corn! When the ears of corn are harvested, the stalks are chopped and used for silage (fermenting in silos.)
Having spent the first 40 years of my life either living on or working on farms I knew most of what you and your commenters have written - what I didn't realise was how complicated it all was! Lets hope that TV reporters everywhere will read and absorb it all, otherwise I fear you'll have to write this post again next year. Of course farmers will be no help at all with this project as nothing amuses them more than some city-slicker TV presenter making schoolboy errors on national television.
Me again - while pulling some weeds I began to wonder where the word "straw" came from for drinking straws and found some info on Wikipedia, such as this:
In the 1800s, the rye grass straw came into fashion because it was cheap and soft, but it had an unfortunate tendency to turn to mush in liquid.[1] To address these shortcomings, Marvin C. Stone patented the modern drinking straw, made of paper, in 1888.[4] He came upon the idea while drinking a mint julep on a hot day in Washington, D.C.; the taste of the rye was mixing with the drink and giving it a grassy taste, which he found unsatisfactory.[1] He wound paper around a pencil to make a thin tube, slid out the pencil from one end, and applied glue between the strips.[1] He later refined it by building a machine that would coat the outside of the paper with wax to hold it together, so the glue wouldn't dissolve in bourbon.
Thank you for the extra information Kitchy and also for your good wishes - much appreciated.
I think most of the corn grown around here goes into whole crop - certainly that which I have seen at close quarters suggests so. None of it has been what I would call a very prolific yield and it has all been cut before it looked really ripe.
Thanks also Ruth for the information regarding the origin of drinking straws.
Interesting! Here corn refers only to what you call maize. Straw is the stalks of other harvested grains and is used only as bedding. Field corn is often made into silage, the whole plant, cobs and all, being ground up for the purpose.
In my area, most farmers have turned to the large round balers for their hay, but quite a few still make the smaller square bales on these steep hillsides where the round baler might be dangerous to use, or just because they prefer feeding from the smaller bales and wasting less hay--the round bales are pretty wasteful, the trade-off I guess for ease of harvest and use.
Some years, like last year, people got three cuttings. This year it looks like it will be the usual two cuttings. The grass seems to be growing much more slowly this summer, even in our lawns.
I had no idea what a silage clamp was til I googled after reading this. We feed our cows with 1800 lb round bales during the winter. We are cow calf and have 500 head. The rest of the year we mob graze, moving cattle, fences and waterer so daily
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