What's anyone planning to use this year? We seem to be getting a stream of reps trying to sell their 'unique product which works better than any other avaiable at the moment'. What price/ton do you pay for what? We getting quotes from 75p/ton to £1.80/ton. Most dairy farms in our area use some sort of Bio type addative. We've used Safe-Gaurd for a few seasons now but are wanting to change because of it's inability to keep the face stable during Aug and Sept when the air temperature is higher. Also we have a wider face than normal (100') which dosen't help. Our centre wall gave way after 32 years last year and the £15000 to replace it seemed a lot of money, so we took it out alltogether. No secondry fermentation at the moment though. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/JamesF/pit.jpg This is how it looks as per 21-2-05. 1st cut to the RHS wall, 2nd cut to the LHS wall and the maize in the dip in the middle.

Would you be surprised that we have *never* used an additive, and despite the occasional shocking wet spell co-inciding with the harvesting, no disasters so far.

We've never used additive either, well actually i tell a lie. The first year we ever made clamp silage we put additive on and when the rep came back to test the silage he couldnt tell the difference between the 1st cut with additive and the 2nd cut without, so we never bought any more! My advice would be dont put any additive on at all and the money you save could be put towards rebuilding your centre wall :-)

I never use an additve and make top notch silage.Getting the basic principles of silage making right is much more important than additive.There are some very good salesmen out there selling high margin junk.

Scud, I would agree entirely on getting the basics right and cutting the additives but has anyone tried making wholecrop wheat silage without an additive,l have not risked it yet but at the cost l would not need much persuasion.

We make 120 acres of maize silage here to feed all year around with no additive, only sunshine and the understanding of our contractor. We do use a preservative on the clamp to be open in the summer to prevent secondary fermentation but we are reducing the rate slowly to find the minimum rate. Neil

Spot on scud,the principles, rooling fields,rolling the pit,two old covers of plastic and one new one, totally covered in tyres, no need of additives, and of course a bit of luck with the weather

we use pharmor - AKA rocket fuel - Very good results. Costs around 80p per tonne. Others saying no need for an additive. We are beef / sheep, and used to think that we did not need an additive, but our grass swards always had a very high clover content. Silage always seemed to smell sour, and we tried wilting, not wilting, all to no avail. Used to spend a fortune on malasses to try and get the cattle to eat the silage, and were also feeding lots of concentrate to help them to finish. Since using an additive, we have not bought any molasses, and, have very significantly cut the use of concentrates fed. Our suckler calves born jan - may were weaned at housing, and only given 1kg mixed barley per head per day for about a month, before cuting this out completely. They are on silage and silage alone, and are growing very well, and are holding their condition. Also the previous years steers and heifers are not having anyt concentrate, only the silage, and all except 4 / 5 of the heifers have been sold fat, and several of the steers. depending on the genteic potential of the cattle, weights of the steers have been between 550kg LW and 725 KG LW - mostly over the 600KG one steer was 550 as out of a small cow by a small lim bull which we have now got rid of. This was done with the animals being sold at 24 months with nothing but grazed grass, and grass silage. We will not try to make silage without using an additive, and the one which has always seemed to work for us in the pharmor one. £ 800 for 1000 tonnes of silage performing well IMO is a very good insurance policy. How much concentrate will £ 800 buy you ? - not much to compliment 1000 tonnes of silage. Daniel.

cut 1 kilo of grass in the garden heap it up (quite a pile eh ) take a syringe and put on 2 ml of dye see if u can find it thats 2 litres per ton make up your own minds and look at the car the reps driving no wonder they all think we are fools !