After a drought-hit growing season, North Shropshire dairy farmer Mark Fitton of The Farms near Whitchurch seized the opportunity to harvest his 35ha of forage maize almost a month earlier than normal this year.

Harvested on 31 August and 1 September, and coming in at 20-21 t/acre, yield was down on last year’s harvest of 23 t/acre, he admits, and on his bumper 2023 maize crop which saw yields of 28 t/acre. But nevertheless he says he was satisfied with the result.

We tried drilling at a higher seed rate of 50,000 seeds/acre, compared with the normal 45,000 seeds/acre, in search of extra yield,” says Mark. “The season was clearly against us, but I think the higher seed rate helped.

Like many farmers, Mark faces tight supplies of homegrown forage for his 250 dairy cows, after grass growth was also hit hard by the drought. So he was keen to gather every square metre of the crop at harvest, and equally keen to minimise losses and wastage in the clamp.

With the crop harvested slightly dry at an estimated 32-35% dry matter (DM) content, clamp losses due to heating, caused by yeasts and moulds growing in the silage, are a possibility. However the dual-acting inoculant Ecocool – designed to not only tackle yeasts and moulds but also improve silage fermentation – has been used as an integral part of the silage preservation process, along with good consolidation with two machines rolling the clamp, and effective clamp sealing to keep out air.

Immediately after harvest, grass is being sown on the maize land, with the aim of achieving a further grass silage cut from this by the end of October, to bolster winter silage supplies.

Mark says: “Normally we’d have taken four or possibly five grass silage cuts by this time of year. But grass growth has been so badly affected by the dry weather that so far this year we’ve only managed two.

For more tips on protecting this year’s maize silage click here.

Find out more about Ecocool here.