The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
The changing face of Scottish silage making
WHEN THE WEATHER dries up many farmers will turn their thoughts to silage making.
Surprisingly, ensiling dates back to Stuart times, although it was not until the early 20th Century before it started to be made seriously.
One of the first silage towers to be built north of the border was by James Cruickshank in Aberdeenshire, who grew mashlam for ensiling in the early 1900s.
Gradually concrete towers began to appear on the horizon as farmers looked for alternatives to hay.
The towers, with their castellated tops, were filled by a machine which resembled the chopper blower unit of today’s forage harvester and were mostly made by American manufacturers.
The early tractors were used to drive them via the belt pulley with the grass chopped into half inch lengths before being blown up pipes to the top.
Once into the tower the grass was tramped in by men and a horse that started at the base of the tower and moving up as the grass level rose. The men could leave via ladders at the end of the day but the horse stayed until the tower was full before being winched back down.
Pit silage appeared in the pre-war years with the grass collected by various methods including green crop loaders or buck rakes.
The pits could be built outside with earth, concrete or wooden walls. Various smaller towers built from pre-cast concrete sections or wire mesh and sisal paper were also used.
During the war American designed machines arrived, such as the Fox Rivers, Allis Chalmers and John Deere and all followed the principle of picking up a previously cut bout before chopping it and blowing it into a trailer.
These tractor-pulled machines often had a separate engine fitted to drive them.
Post-war British manufacturers had to fill the gap of the unavailable American machines. David Brown were one of the first to bring out a successful British forage harvester with their Hurricane model.
However these early British machines were a step back from the American imported harvesters and chopper blowers in that they did not chop the crop finely as they were in line flail machines.
Silage baling was also being done, with the small square balers such as Bamford, Jones and Salopian. The balers were set to produce a much shorter bale for collecting and stacking in a sealed stack. The system soon died out because of the heavy weight of the bales to be hand stacked.
More and more manufacturers were now producing forage harvesters with most of them single chop machines, although there was the odd machine capable of producing a finer chop such as the Silorator, which used a Hayter cutting deck before the grass went into the chopper blower.
Further expansion of the method came in the 1960s with more machinery becoming available.
Another factor in the increase of pit silage was the Beeching cuts in the rail network, which led to vast amounts of railway sleepers becoming available for the construction of pits.
In this decade machines were still small enough to make them affordable and many a farm would buy Kidd, Massey Ferguson, Wilder or IH Gloster machines.
A range of handling equipment was offered alongside the harvesters including trailers complete with purpose-built removable silage sides from companies such as Marshall andweeks and buck rakes from Mil and Twose.
Machinery to feed the silage was now becoming more sophisticated and therefore there was a need to develop machines capable of producing a finer chop, which also led to better quality and higher intake from the animals feeding on it.
Double chop or fine chop was now the way forward, with machines using flail blades to cut the growing crop before it passed through further blades before being blown into trailers. These double chop machines came from New Holland, Kidd and Lundell.
European manufacturers such as Taarup, JF and Claas also entered the market and by the end of the 1970s their new precision chopped length of grass was more favourable.
Other precision chop machines came from John Deere and New Holland, who remained major players, while others were the Kidd, Bamford, Vicon Gehl and Hesston machines.
These new precision chop machines needed the grass to be cut and wilted before harvesting.
This reduction in the water content helped speed up harvesting, improved the quality of the crop and had a big reduction in the effluent produced.
Today the market is dominated by self propelled harvesters from Claas, Krone, New Holland and John Deere. Although Pottinger, Lely and JF Stoll still offer trailed machines.
Big bale silage methods introduced in the early 1980s used an existing round baler and sealable bags before a better system of wrapping with plastic film came along.
However higher plastic prices are causing concern with this system.
The use of Forage Wagons — which can pick up the cut crop, chop it and then fill the wagon before the whole outfit transports it — is also gaining favour as it means less capital outlay.
To celebrate the making of silage a special display of forage equipment old and new will be at the Fife Vintage Agricultural Machinery Club’s annual rally at Corston Mill, Strathmiglo, on June 10.