Unfortunately, we cannot control these farm inputs, (we all wish we could) but it must be said that making average, good or excellent silage costs pretty much the same money.

Therefore, all farms should be looking to capitalise on every cut of grass to produce the best quality and value forage for their farm this year.

With every tonne of silage important, farms should be aiming to produce as much energy-dense forage as they possibly can.

How do you do this? You minimise dry matter (DM) losses from forage at ensiling and you speed up the fermentation process to convert as much of the essential nutrients available in the forage.

Recent research has shown that dry matter losses are costing Irish farmers on average €28 per tonne of DM, with this figure likely to be considerably higher in 2022 based on current input costs.

Simple changes in silage-making practices are recommended, like ensuring a rapid wilt to a target of 30% DM as quickly as possible to make sure grass is dry enough for the clamp or bale while avoiding losses of essential nutrients. Also using a silage additive like Advance+ will drive a faster fermentation once ensiled, thus reducing DM losses during this process to improve protein and sugar levels and intake potential.

Advance+ consistently improves silage quality when forage analyses are taken.

Benefits

Based on data from a bank of 200+ samples from 2018, Advance+ had the following benefits:

1. Reduction of 3.5% DM losses, ie extra 35t DM in 1,000t clamp.

2. Extra 0.52 MJ/kg of metabolisable energy (ME) which can provide extra 3l of milk from forage – based on 30kg DM forage intake.

3. Extra 46% sugar content as Advance+ bugs are more efficient during fermentation.

Provita Advance+ provides such dependable results because of the unique EU-approved triple strain combination.

All strains of bacteria in Advance+ are registered with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) which requires extensive dossiers covering quality, safety, and efficacy.

Being a multi-strain product increases the reliability over a wider range of conditions also which is very useful for the unpredictable weather conditions.

Applied at the recommended rate, Advance+ is guaranteed to supply 1.2 million bacteria per gram of forage. This high level of inoculant means sufficient numbers of bacteria are present to kick-start and accelerate the fermentation process to lock in that goodness in the silage as demonstrated above.

There is lot of research to show that for green crops in Ireland, a minimum of 1m bacteria per gram of forage needs to be applied, as additives containing less will not be cost-effective and will not control the preservation you require.

Using Advance+ will improve face stability and prevent heating because of the inclusion of acetic acid-forming bacteria in the mixture. But it is more of an insurance policy to help some inaccuracies in the ensiling process.

You will want to avoid over-wilting as spoilage organisms will build up on the crop over time and adequate rolling at filling time will help consolidation. Yet Advance+ is very effective at reducing spoilage, moulding, and heating issues at silage face provided normal silage management is good.

Silages treated with Advance+ consistently show more true protein, more energy and higher digestibility resulting in improved animal performance.

By not using a silage additive you are not saving money. It will cost money because the losses are greater and animals will underperform on forage-based diets and require more concentrates, which are on upward price trend, to make up the difference.

Typically using Advance+ will yield a return on investment of 6:1 even in good weather conditions. Advance+ will have a cost equivalent to 4 to 5c/cow/day and calculated milk yield response can be up to 3l/cow/day.

Therefore, for no more than 5c you are likely to get back €1+ on every cow, every day. A sound investment you would agree!

Advance+ has been widely used throughout UK and Ireland, plus further afield export markets, with excellent forage results consistently seen.

Feedback

Don’t just take our word for it – here is some feedback from Advance+ users:

“Tremendous results with Advance+: really sweetens our silage and makes good silage even better!”

“Annual forage analysis confirms every time the benefit of applying Advance+ to forage – results are always superior to untreated samples adding extra value to the silage, which results in a genuine return on investment for the farm.”

“I am happy to attribute my commitment to using Provita’s Advance+ inoculant as a significant factor in allowing me to make high quality silage. We have been using the product for the past 20 years. It gets the pH within the clamp down very quickly. But it’s at feeding out that I see the real benefit of the product.”

“We never get secondary fermentation on the face of the silage clamp. Our first cut silo is very wide. But even with this we never see any deterioration in the quality of the silage that is going into the feeder wagon. Another key benefit is the zero losses of forage at the surface and shoulders of the clamp. Again, I put this down to the effect of the inoculant.”

Plan now to maximise your 2022 forage quality with Provita’s Advance+.

*References available on request

Written by George Shaw, MPharm MPSNI, Technical Adviser, george.shaw@provita.co.uk, 078 4192 6219. Contact us for your local stockist and ADVANCE+ SPECIAL OFFERS

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