Week 4th September 2005

This week has been one of the busiest weeks of the year so far for the arable side of the farm. Not only have we been combining the arable crops, we have also been silaging, so altogether it has taken a lot of man and machinery power!

Combine Harvesting

Here at Stockley Farm we grow many arable crops to provide feed (grain) for the cattle and straw for bedding. The warm dry summer has helped Stockley produce one of its best crops for several years. When the grain is ready for harvesting, Stockley uses local contractors to combine the crop.

You can see the Wheat grain being transferred from the combine harvester into a grain trailer. Once the trailer is full of grain, it is taken a grain dryer so that it can be dried to the specified moisture content.

Stockley Farm has its own grain dryer, which means we can dry the grain ourselves, rather than selling it to a grain merchant who charges a premium depending on the moisture content.

The grain is tipped into the container, and the grey pipe has a conveyor belt inside which transports the grain into the large bin for drying. Once the grain is dried out we send it to a grain merchant where it is processed and turned into cattle feed. This will feed all of Stockley’s livestock over the year until harvest next summer.

Silaging

Stockley Farm produces two types of silage to feed the cows through the winter months. Grass silage, which meets the basic forage requirement of the cows, and whole crop silage (which is a wheat, barley, oats and triticale mixture), which provides extra energy and nutrition for good milk yield and a healthy herd.

This year we have silaged 270 acres of grassland, some of which went into the silage clamp as seen below, and some into large rectangular bales which you often see wrapped in black plastic sheeting at this time of year. Silage must be kept free from air in order to preserve it over winter, so it is very important to bale or clamp it well.

To silage grass or any crop the weather must be good and ideally have been dry for at least a few days before hand so that the crop is not too wet. First of all the grass is cut with a mower the day before collecting. This gives it chance to dry out a bit before collecting.
	A rake is then used to collect all the grass up and put it into neat rows, ready for the forage harvester.
The forage harvester collects the grass, adds a preservative to help keep the grass over winter, chops it up, and transfers it to a silage trailer.
	The tractor driver takes the trailer to the silage clamp and tips it so that is can be neatly piled into the clamp by the Buck Rake.
The Buck Rake pushes all the grass into the clamp and acts as a roller to compress it. This pushes out as much air as possible so that the crop will keep well over winter.
	Once the entire crop has been harvested it is rolled again using a tractor (the small tractor has to be used right at the top as the big one touches the roof!), and plastic sheets are used to cover and seal it up, until it is needed for feeding during the winter.

 

 

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