Growing and ensiling protein and energy crops on-farm has many benefits.  Not only does it give farmers more control over feed costs during autumn and winter, but research shows that different forages also increase feed intake and improve production response.

Red clover bales in a field

Red clover silage has a higher and better quality protein than grass – but there’s a perception it’s difficult to ensile. However, according toThe Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) - member of the new Silage Advisory Centre (SilAC) created to promote the benefits of baled silage as a modern grassland and forage management tool - good quality red clover silage can be made successfully in clamps or bales with little difference between them in protein preservation rates, dry matter intake and in vivo digestibility.  Baling can however provide advantages for farms with lower percentages of red clover than grass, asDr Dave Davies, Silage Researcher at IBERS, explains:

Red clover

"If clover is ensiled in large clamps with grass silage it gets ‘lost’ and can’t be fed out accurately. Bales enable accurate inclusion in the ration and they can be easily identified, accessed and quantified so the play-off between silage yield and optimum nutrition can be adjusted for the winter feeding period."

So if the benefits are clear, why haven’t more farmers embraced baling red clover in the past?

Red Clover Protein Chart

"Red clover has been perceived as difficult to ensile because it is low in water soluble carbohydrates which are used by lactic acid bacteria to ferment to lactic acid and preserve the crop," explains Dr Davies. "The crop’s higher protein concentration also gives it a natural ability to inhibit the pH decline which occurs when lactic acid is produced, meaning more acid is required to bring the pH down to the required level."

To address such issues, SilAC advice is to:

  • cut when the crop is in mid-bloom with mower set high enough to avoid soil contamination - between 2.5 and 3.5 inches, depending on ground conditions;
  • leave crop in a wide swath to speed up wilting rate;
  • wilt for a maximum of 48 hours with minimal mechanical movement to avoid leaf shatter and loss (which can reduce protein quality);
  • ensile with an inoculant containing homo-fermentative lactic acid bacteria to promote rapid and successful fermentation and improved protein content.

Norbert Schulze, Silage Marketing Manager at Dow, founding member of SilAC, adds that harvesting using a baler to chop the crop has advantages, as does wrapping bales at storage sites. "Chopping leads to more nutrients being preserved in the silage, as tighter compaction in the bale will remove oxygen quicker and speed up fermentation," he says. "Additionally, wrapping bales with six layers of quality film reduces the risks of ‘stalky’ material penetrating through the wrap which allows oxygen to enter and damage the silage."

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