Bales and Baleage Dr Tom Chamberlain Silostop Technical Support - - PDF document

09/03/2017 1

Vit ita Plu lus Custom Harv rvester Meeting

Bales and Baleage

Dr Tom Chamberlain

Silostop Technical Support Team

22 Feb eb, 2017

How much Baleage is made?

• W Europe
• 10 – 25% of all silage

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 1984 1989 1994 2000

% of production

UK Silage making (Wilkinson, 2003)

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Why make baleage / haylage (1)

• Conserving small amounts of forage
• Less equipment and fewer workers are required
• Small numbers of animals being fed at certain

times of the year

• Smaller farms, goats, sheep, (horses)
• Small areas of grassland surplus to grazing

requirements

• Specialist crops such as low DCAB grass silage

for cattle

• Reduced spoilage at feed-out.
• Easier to move than silage made in a silo.
• Baled silage trades well : UK, USA, Indian

sub-continent etc.

Why make baleage / haylage (2)

• Less weather dependent and easier to store than hay.
• Big issue on coast, Scotland etc.
• Reduced machinery requirements at feed-out.
• Fore-end loader and ‘un-winder’ for use in field (Australia, Russia)
• Lower capital costs than a silo
• Costs of building a silo can be high (UK - £110/Tonne stored)
• Minimal capital costs for storing bales
• Can be strict environmental controls and constraints for silos.
• Fewer environ regulations on baled silage storage
• However baled silage is more expensive to make than silo

silage (UK - £30/T cf £24/T).

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Why make baleage rather than hay?

• Shorter drying window
• Approx 2 days for baleage
• Approx 4-5 days for hay
• (UK) Weather forecasts cannot predict that far ahead
• Less dust and poss. fewer mould spores
• Esp for horses and small ruminants
• BUT washed-out / failed hay will not be saved by

baling and wrapping

• Baling and wrapping is not MAGIC!

Target dry matters?

• Aim for 45 – 55%
• Too wet
• Slump
• Layers of plastic can split open
• Clostridial / butyric fermentation
• Too dry
• Restricted fermentation – high pH
• Not stable
• Can heat up when opened

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What can be baled?

• Just about everything can be baled.
• Grass, alfalfa and mixtures
• Corn silage (Holland, Pakistan)
• Chopper harvested
• Bales and wrapped in yard
• Making 1 Tonne bales for selling
• Kale, sorghum, etc, etc.
• Baled silage
• lower moisture
• Restricts fermentation
• Less acid needed to lower pH
• Usually not ‘conditioned’
• Lower available sugars
• Slow fermentation

Muck (2006), alfalfa/grass, 61% moisture

Baled compared to chopped, bunker silage

4.0 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5.0 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6.0 10 20 30 40 50 60

pH

Days of fermentation

Baled Chopped/bunker

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 20 30 40 50 60

Total acids (% DM)

Days of fermentation

Baled Chopped/bunker

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Compaction in bales

• All silage making is an anaerobic

process

• Silos: compaction target = 44 – 48 lb.

FW/cu ft.

• Less air within the silage pile
• Fewer routes for air to move along – porosity
• Smaller piles
• Bales
• Make as dense as possible (>25 lb FW/cu ft)
• ? Over 2000 lbs
• Tighter compaction gives faster and

lower pH fall in bunks.

• Denser bunker silos have lower

dry matter losses (spoilage) after 6 months

5 10 15 20 25 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Losses (% of dry matter) Density lb FW/ft3

DM losses after 189d

Lynch and Kung (2000) Holmes and Muck (2002)

Effects of looseness on DM losses

4.4 4.6 4.8 5 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6 6.2

3 5 8 42

Silage pH

Days of ensiling Loose Pack Tight Pack

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How much air are you baling?

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 2400 Porosity (% gas spaces)

Density (FW lb/ft) Bale weight (lb/bale)

Bale density and porisity - 4 ft x 4 ft round bale

FW density Porosity (%)

TARGET DENSITY (SILO)

• Porosity
• Proportion of bale

that is air

• Problems
• Initial air in bale
• More channels for

air to move around

• Air penetrates

deeper

• Make bales as heavy

as you can lift

Weight of bales

• Make as heavy as possible
• Better compaction – less air tracking in
• Lower dry matter losses
• Lower wrapping costs/Ton
• Lower transport costs/Ton
• All those involved need to be able to

lift them

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Baler and wrapper developments

• Baling of forages started in 1970’s
• Mature industry
• Continual developments
• Modern machines highly automated
• Computer controlled
• Operator has become distant from

the process

• How many layers/turns, overlap etc.

Developments 1970’s – 2010’s

• Balers purpose built for heavy forages
• Moved from bagging to wrapping
• Less air incorporated and less plastic involved

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Chopper knives

• Knives just behind pick up reel
• Chop down to 3”-6” long
• Advantages
• Heavier bales : less wrapping and transport
• Less air : Better fermentation
• Easier to mix into a TMR – less ration sorting
• Disadvantage
• Needs increased power at baling and slows baling

Wrapper balers

• Combines the baling and the

wrapping

• Quicker
• Faster to get weather-proof
• Fewer staff and tractors involved
• Bales wrapped in field
• More prone to film damage
• Newest combo’s allow for continuous

baling and wrapping process.

09/03/2017 9

In line ‘tube’ balers

• Long ‘sausages’ of bales
• Much less wrap per bale
• No handling after wrapping
• BUT
• Need good access when feeding out
• Frozen ground (N America)
• Feed out in drought – dry ground (Australia)
• Not suitable for UK climate – too wet

In chamber film wrapping

• Use a film rather than a net to wrap

bale

• Less expansion on release from

chamber

• Denser bale, better fermentation
• Film improves the oxygen barrier
• Easier to unwrap/use – esp. when

frozen in winter

09/03/2017 10

Wrapping film – New type of film

• Original film = polyethylene
• Stretchy, tacky, low cost
• Poor as an oxygen barrier
• High Oxygen Transmission Rate (OTR)
• Low OTR film being developed
• Feed grade novel plastic – lower OTR
• Layered with PE film
• Same stretch and tack, higher cost

Why is an oxygen barrier important with bales?

• In silage piles we are concerned about outer 2ft of silage
• Most of silage in a pile is more than 2ft below surface
• Bales are smaller so have higher Surface Area : Volume ratio

2 inches 5 inches 2 foot

25% of the silage in a bale is in outer 2 inches 50% of the silage in a bale is in outer 5 inches

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How does this affect silage quality?

• Mold cover
• Oxygen supports molds which break down acids
• Dry matter losses
• As silage rots nutrient-rich dry matter lost
• Ash
• As organic matter rots proportion of ash

remaining increases

• Appearance / palatability / disease risk

Mould cover cf storage period

Dry weight losses at 273 days correlated with surface mold counts at this time (r2 = 0.66)

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 Surface covered by mould (%) Storage period (days)

PE - 6 layers OB - 4 layers Borreani and Tabacco, (2008)

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DM losses increase with storage period

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 60 120 180 240 300

Dry weight losses (g/kg) Storage period (days) PE2 PE4 PE6 PE8 OB2 OB4 OB6 OB8

Borreani and Tabacco, (2008)

Silostop wrapping of baled grass silage

6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 PE Out PE Center OB out OB Center

Ash (% DM)

Ash - mean and se bars

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PE Out PE Center OB out OB Center

log(10) Yeast count

Yeast - mean and se bars

p = 0.098 for diff between PE and OB p = 0.005 for diff between PE and OB n = 5 bales for OB and PE wrap treatments n.s. for effect of site within bale and any interaction

D Lewis, Lallemand, Australia, opened at 7.5 months Lewis et al (2016) 17th ICFC

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Listeriosis (Listeria monocytogenes)

• Disease of all ruminants - esp. small ones
• High mortality (+abortion), often related to Baleage
• Food poisoning and abortion in humans (cheese)
• Likes MILDLY aerobic conditions
• Does not grown if entirely anaerobic
• Out-competed if in aerobic conditions
• Does not grow below pH approx. 5.5
• High OTR film – mildly aerobic, lactic acid broken

down by molds – pH rises

• Low OTR reduce Listeria growth rates
• Has been seen to reduce listeria eye problems in sheep

pH and Listeria changes in baled silage

1 2 3 4 5 6 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Listeria (log10 cfu/g)

pH Days post ensiling

pH 1/2 inch hole pH Bale center Listeria 1/2 inch hole Listeria Bale center

• pH initially falls at both

sites

• Background Listeria cannot

multiply

• Air ingress through tie-hole
• Molds grow
• Break down of lactic acid
• pH rises
• Listeria can grow

(McDonald, 1991)

09/03/2017 14

Combo wrapping – using different colours

• With more than 1 PSU can use

combinations

• Silostop bale wrap on one spool
• Normal PE on other(s)
• Need min 2 layers of Silostop

bale wrap in the stack of layers

• f plastic

N Carolina, USA

• What color films should you use?
• Growing rainbow of colors
• Dark will get hotter than light colors
• Does it matter?

Bale colors

09/03/2017 15

Temperatures inside bales

Quoted by Marley, G (2016) 17th ICFC

Bacteria death temperatures Death point

• C
• F

L plantarum 42 108 L buchneri 45 113

• Fermentation / ensiling is a

bacterial process

• Bacteria work faster in hotter

conditions but have an upper limit

• Black plastic will heat up more in

hot and in sunny weather

• Does this impact on silage quality

just below the covering film?

• Are desirable bacteria killed?

Temperature inside wrapped bales

40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

21Jun 05Jul 19Jul 02Aug 16Aug 30Aug 13Sep 27Sep 11Oct 25Oct

• F

Beige Film Black Film Lactobacillus spp death point

Data collected in England summer 2016

09/03/2017 16

Environmental temperature and temperature inside wrapped bales

• England is a

temperate, maritime climate

• Average daily

temperatures rarely above 70oF

• Mid-west USA may

be 25o F higher

• Risk of

Lactobacillus death just under bale wrap in dark bales

40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

21Jun 05Jul 19Jul 02Aug 16Aug 30Aug 13Sep 27Sep 11Oct 25Oct

• F

Beige Film Black Film Outside

Lactobacillus spp death point

• Coblenz et al (2016), US DFRC, WI
• 59% moisture alfalfa (4ft x 4 ft round)
• Wrapping delayed by 0,1,2 or 3 days
• Delayed wrapping raised temps
• Delayed wrapping:
• Lowers sugars, raised buffering
• Lowered ferm. acids, raise pH
• SO: Wrap as soon as possible

How quickly do bales need wrapping?

WSC pH Longer delay: higher temperatures

09/03/2017 17

How many layers?

• How long will you store the silage for?
• What type of film are you using?
• What is the OTR?
• How tolerant are you of molds etc?
• How much do the wrapped bales

need moving?

• How careful is the team?
• How stemmy is the material?

How many layers?

• Each layer is 50% overlapped
• When bale fully covered 2 layers have been

applied

• count number of turns needed to cover bale
• On simple balers 18 – 22 turns applies around 6

layers.

• Can determine number of layers by careful

dissection

09/03/2017 18

Physical damage to bale wrap

• 6 layers of stretched PE film = 6 mil
• Human hair about 2 mil
• The film is very thin and very fragile
• Move bales as little as possible after wrapping
• In line wrappers better
• Big differences between operators
• Being careful
• Not going too fast – eg lower don’t drop.

SO – How many layers?

• Very user, crop and end-use dependent
• Research workers can make good baleage with 4

layers (Alfalfa, Coblenz, Prof Anim Sci 2016)

• 6 - 8 layers is general starting point
• V stemmy crops – old alfalfa
• V low mold tolerance – e.g. horses
• ?listeria control
• 4 layers
• Only v soft crops (grass) in round bales and great care
• Will get damage and mold – is this acceptable?

09/03/2017 19

How to store bales – which way up?

• On their sides or on their end?
• More layers of plastic on the ends
• Open up more on ends if bales ‘slump’
• In rows or stacks?
• Rows – easy access
• Stacks – good protection

Holes in bale film – and other coverings

• Many bales get holes
• Few (4%) are patched
• Causes
• Stems, handling material, transport,

vermin, birds

• 3mm hole – 8% loss of edible silage

(6 months)

• 24mm hole – 33% loss of edible

silage

09/03/2017 20

Silopatches

• Size: 4 inch x 6 inch
• 36 yards long roll
• 216 patches per roll
• perforated between patches
• Very strong glue

Birds and other vermin

• A global problem
• Birds, badgers, raccoons, parrots,

koala bears, etc

• Ireland (McNamara, 2001)
• 53% of farms report damage to

bales when in field

• 63% report damage in stack yard

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Birds and other vermin

• Puncture oxygen barrier
• As much as 5% of DM made inedible
• Spread disease: Salmonella, TB, etc
• Eat food conserved for the cattle
• $50/day losses
• Control – ideas please
• Many vermin are protected

THANK YOU – questions please