DairyNZ announces levy referendum date
DairyNZ has announced the date for its upcoming Milksolids Levy vote.
Quality silage is a stable feed made from quality pasture preserved in the absence of oxygen by quality fermentation to minimise any loss of feeding value, says DairyNZ.
It is impossible to produce quality silage from poor quality pasture, no matter how good the fermentation is. Both the quality of the ensiled pasture and the quality of the fermentation must be considered. These can be measured by having a feed analysis done on your silage.
With well preserved silage, losses in feeding value during fermentation will be small, and the final silage will be only slightly lower in feeding value than the original pasture.
The quality of the fermentation tells us how well the quality of the original pasture has been preserved in the silage:
pH: The lactic acid produced during fermentation causes a decrease in pH. A low pH will prevent an unwanted butyric fermentation, which reduces the feeding value and palatibility of the silage. Low DM silage needs a lower pH than high DM silage.
Ammonia-N: Low values for ammonia-N indicate minimal breakdown of protein in the silage, usually because pH has fallen quickly to a low level in the silage.
Lactic and butyric acids: High concentrations of lactic acid are seen in well preserved silage. High levels of butyric acid are found in poorly preserved silage, and indicate that an unwanted butyric fermentation has occurred.
Assessing by sight, smell
If you don't have a feed analysis for your silage you can estimate quality from its appearance.
Feed quality: High quality silage contains lots of leaf and very little stem. The more stem in silage the poorer its quality.
Colour: Well-preserved silages are green, yellow or pale brown. Dark brown silage is generally poorly preserved. Smell: Well preserved silage has a sweet, tobacco smell. Foul, rancid smells indicate the presence of butyric acid from poor preservation.
Moulds: These grow where silage has been exposed to air. Some fungi can produce toxins.
Quality silage can support high milk production. In England, 560kg Friesian cows have eaten 16kg DM/day as pasture silage (approx 11 MJ ME/kg DM, 7% Ammonia-N) and produced 1.6kgMS/day for 14 weeks without losing body condition.
When silage is fed to cows as a sole diet, intake is generally lower than that of fresh pasture. Increasing the ammonia-N from 5% to 10% can result in a 5-10% drop in DM intake. A 5% decrease in digestibility (from 70% to 65%) can cause a 2kgDM/day drop in DM intake. Feeds of lower digestibility provide the cow with less nutrients for milk production. A 5% drop in silage digestibility for a 200 tonne silage stack (50 tonne DM) could result in 300kg less milksolids produced, and 450kg liveweight loss, if fed to milking cows. Low quality silage (made from low quality pasture, or ensiled with low quality fermentation, or both) will not support high milk yields. In fact many silages made on dairy farms in New Zealand are only suitable for maintaining cows.
Fonterra has unveiled the first refrigerated electric truck to deliver dairy products across Auckland.
Research and healthcare initiatives, leadership and dedication to the sector have been recognised in the 2025 Horticulture Industry Awards.
Virtual fencing and pasture management company Halter says its NZ operations has delivered a profit of $2.8 million after exclusion of notional items.
Manuka honey trader Comvita slumped to a $104 million net loss last financial year, reflecting prolonged market disruption, oversupply and pricing volatility.
The Government has struck a deal with New Zealand's poultry industry, agreeing how they will jointly prepare for and respond to exotic poultry diseases, including any possible outbreak of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI).
The conversion of productive farmland into trees has pretty much annihilated the wool industry.
OPINION: Milking It reckons if you're National, looking at recent polls, the dream scenario is that the elusive economic recovery…
OPINION: Sydney has a $12 million milk disposal problem.