We all know the reasons for taking a 2 or 3 cut silage system to 4 or 5 cuts; better grass quality and higher yields to increase output from forage, and if you’re not doing it already, you’ve probably dismissed is it as an option for your business or are thinking of moving in that direction.
It's always worth thinking through the things to put in place for a multi-cut system though, even if you are already on that road:
- Check that your swards are high performing – do you need to reseed to get the most out of the system?
- How’s soil pH and fertility? – It’s all got to be in place to make a multi-cut system work and if you don’t analyse your soil, you won’t know how to get the most out of the approach.
- There’s less time between cuts to apply slurry, so think about reducing rates and getting on with the job.
- Increased yields mean more P and K are taken out of the system, so a compound fertiliser should be considered to balance offtakes against what the crop and soil need.
- Don’t forget Sulphur – most grassland needs it now and so if you are thinking NPK, you should probably be thinking NPKS.
Interestingly, a group of Shropshire dairy farmers monitored their costs and benefits from getting on the multi-cut road and this showed that going from 3 to 4 cuts had a return on investment within the system of 8:1, whilst this reduced to 7:1 when going from 4 to 5 cuts. To get these sorts of benefits we need everything in place and the costs/benefits under our control.
Dave Mitchell
Fertiliser Manager
m: 07990 578543
Email Dave | LinkedIn
