Revisiting drum silage, Bridging the ensiling gap to small producers with out all the plastic

Commodities

Practices

Forage independence is an elusive dream for many homesteaders and small producers.  The cost of equipment and enough healthy land to produce a viable grazing system is difficult to acquire.  This usually results in off farm jobs to afford feed and a slippery slope of being over carrying capacity and not rotating livestock enough to let land recover.  The current ensiling systems for small producers involve wasteful and risky thin plastic sealing.  The stored silage can spoil before, and during feedout.  Many small producers can’t feed out the ensiled material fast enough to avoid spoilage.  The equipment to make and handle these heavy plastic wrapped bales is cost prohibitive.  There are paths forward but information is hard to find and often being practiced in other countries. The need for a modern guide with data to give confidence to small producers to branch out and try ensiling is needed.  We feel ensiling could be a tool to help small producers to become forage independent, weather drought, long winters all while taking advantage of the power of annual cover crops abundant forage production as they regenerate the soil and fuel biodiversity on the land.

One solution is simple.  This method has been done before. We see many countries with small producers already use drums for small scale silage.  Keith Johnson of Purdue did some experiments decades ago with drum silage(infact we had a chance to talk with Keith and show him our early ensiling experiments) It is a standard material handling system used the world over.  Steel drums, (from organic syrup are best) and can be refurbished and reused indefinitely.  Drums can be manhandled, or manipulated with many off the shelf tools/machines.  They are extremely durable.  Industries they serve demand contents remain sealed through dynamic conditions.  We have been employing and testing using drums for ensiling everything from weeds, grasses, sorghum, corn to tree leaves. After breaking the seal, we designed a simple follower plate system to expel the air at each feeding.  This maintains freshness, and allows extending the feed out of the contents over a much longer time. 

We plan to ensile material from at least 2 seasons, and have the material tested at ~30 days and then at 3 month intervals over 18-24 months for nutrient content and RFV.  We feel sending 3 individual samples from 3 different drums at each interval should give enough of a sample size over time. This will show the quality we start with and any loss of quality over time. There are many forage crop options one could ensile, others are better in the long term scale, but it is outside the scope of this project to establish a perennial forage crop such as alfalfa.  So during this project we will be ensiling Sorghum hybrids. We feel they represent a powerful regenerative tool for soil, but also a substantial forage source. We also believe, like us, other small producers may not have the soil fertility yet to invest in perennial forage. With lower moisture and fertilizer input requirements, rapid growth, Sorghum/sudan should fit in the production window of most people in our surrounding region.  Versatile for grain, forage, biomass, habitat and syrup, offers opportunities for experimentation by the small producer outside this trial. It’s readily accepted by large and small ruminants and shows promise with our heritage hogs also. We will compile data and provide the results to show what would be realistically expected for anyone wishing to attempt to replicate.

We intend to grow 2 types of sorghum/Sudan hybrids for the project. One being a “take all” approach of a single cutting and then using a delayed maturity to harvest or graze as needed in incremental amounts.  Two varieties hedges our bets on having a timely crop to use for the project.  Testing is still farming, we do have the whim of the weather.  If other crops cooperate, an additional demonstration of perennial clover/alfalfa/forbs harvest and ensiling may be demonstrated on field days and social media and feed tests.

We will video document the important process of barrel reconditioning and seal replacement.  We will video document several methods of harvesting material, from hand harvest to small scale machines for harvest(wood chipper, flail collection, and haybine). We will show tips and tricks to on packing and sealing, especially long haylage grasses.  We will offer plans(drawings) and video instructions on building the sealing follower plate from several types of materials and demonstrate its use. We will show a simple burp valve that can be added to expel air and break suction for smaller people.  We will video document some of the drum handling devices we use on farm.

We plan to demonstrate the above processes and equipment during at least 4 on site outreach visits.