Manure Holds Down Plastic On Silage Stack

Manure Holds Down Plastic On Silage Stack HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Forage Handling 19-4-32 A few years ago, when dairyman Paul Warnshuis had a lot more silage from his second and third cutting than room in his silos to hold it, a visiting German student showed him a simple, effective way to cover the big stack he was forced to pile on the ground. "Many farmers in Europe have used manure to hold down plastic on stacks for years. I tried it and it worked," says Warnshuis, who farms near Sherman, N.Y. Compared with packing silage into a bunker silo, there's less waste and virtu-ally no spoilage in stacks stored on the ground, Warnshuis discovered. Compared with bagging silage, there's a lot less fuss and muss, he adds. Warnshuis packs his silage just like he would in a bunker silo, dumping silage out of 8-ton forage wagons pulled over the top of the pile with a 4-WD tractor. Another 4-WD tractor packs the silage behind the tractor and wagon. Once packed, the 300 to 500-ton stacks are covered with two or three layers of E-mil. plastic. About 10 old tires are used to keep plastic in place until a 4-in. layer of manure is spread over the plastic with a conventional manure spreader. As the manure dries, it shrinks to hold the plastic tightly in place until Warnshuis starts rolling the plastic back for daily feeding. Warnshuis says he's amazed at how little spoilage there is with the system. "At the most, I've hauled two spreader loads of manure and spoiled silage away from one of these piles," he says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Paul Warnshuis, 4270 Sherman-Ripley Rd., Sherman, N.Y. 14781 (ph 716 761-6636).

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