Vacuum Silage

CDavidLance said:

There is now a limited and globally unique stock of rolls of Silage Sheet Seam. The YVCS website is carrying that update. A run of 30 rolls of 100 m has been produced.
Contributors showing an interest in this product have included @davidroberts30 , @Bury the Trash , @PREES , @topground , @Hilly , @mealman , @Richard III , @MrA.G. , @KennyO , @RushesToo , @steveR , @som farmer , @Agrifool and @oakfarm in the past. The product is on sale through the website and email address.


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Lengths of Silage Sheet Seam
Sheet Seam is available in 100 m rolls and also as 50 m rolls. A Yalland one field clamp only needs about 40 m plus overlap so 50 m is enough for that. The YVCS website has been updated with these details and the cost.
Those farmers trying this out on clamps the size of One Day Silage Bays will need the larger rolls.

How thick is a Crow Proof Safety Sheet for Silage?
Visqueen makes 250 micron (1000 Gauge), 300 micron (1200 Gauge) and 500 micron (2000 Gauge) and sells them as their EcoMembrane range as damp proof sheets. This means the heavier ones are easier to get from building suppliers than agricultural suppliers. Please let us know if you have tried any of these weights and whether they held up as safety sheets.
The old ones that we used at Yalland have finally gone and what is available now is quite different from the 1970's.

Real Life Carbon Dioxide Response.
Nothing simulated about these images taken yesterday. A real life Carbon Dioxide Response on a real clamp of Vacuum Silage made in North Devon last week. For those of you who have never seen this, keep dreaming and one day it will come true.
There will be some video footage available soon showing this response on vimeo.
Samples were also taken of the forage and they are being analysed today. Those results will be published on this thread over the next few days.

Video link to the Carbon Dioxide Response
Carbon Dioxide Response June 2022.mkv
https://vimeo.com/720313063

Another video to come soon showing the removal of the excess Carbon Dioxide.

Video link to the Removal of the Carbon Dioxide Response
Removing the Carbon Dioxide Response.mkv
https://vimeo.com/720372131

This shows the electric side channel blower (BL42) in action removing the gas of the Carbon Dioxide response from a small grass silage clamp. It is not taken down to the full vacuum, just 160 mbars to allow for safety sheeting. The clamp won't produce much more Carbon Dioxide after its two day response. The resting height for storage is about 30 to 40 % higher than it was at the maximum vacuum under compression. This resting height is approximately equivalent to what happens under mechanical compaction in conventional clamps.
The video covers the 27 minutes needed to evacuate the clamp but the video is less than 3 minutes long using time lapses.

Loss of Sugars in Windrows
Here are some analysis results from samples that I took as our clamp of Vacuum Silage was being made in early June. It did not go according to plan because of fixing up equipment so there was an opportunity to monitor what was happening in the windrows. The grass was lying for 3 days before being collected in and sheeted down.
This is not a scientific study, but there are two good stories in the data, highlighted in yellow. The dry matter shows that the weather stopped the rows drying out too much and the grass was at the right percentage going into the stack. The more dramatic story is in the "Sugars" data and shows just how fast they burn up and disappear if grass is left too long before being clamped, wrapped or bagged. About 40 % was lost from this forage in the three days in windrows and two days of fermentation.
Other measures, including protein were quite stable over the six days that were monitored.



SC means standing crop. Day 1, 2 and 3 were in windrows. D5/D6 is the anaerobic sample after the Carbon Dioxide Response.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

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Really great questions. This is going to take a while, please bear with me as I take them one by one.

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

Only if a vacuum exists after CO2 has stopped being produced by the forage. In that situation the clamp could suck in air. This could happen if a vacuum was applied after a few weeks of fermentation.
The main CO2 response happens as soon as the Oxygen has been removed from the clamp on the first vacuum extraction. The Yalland system gets this response as soon as the pump is stopped and allows the CO2 to permeate throughout the clamp and turn everything anaerobic within the sealed sheets, for two days.
The models from scientists suggest that CO2 continues to be produced after this time at lower and lower levels as the acidity builds up (pH drops) and the pickling completes within the sealed clamp. So the CO2 production tails off over many days or a few weeks, to negligible levels, but never completely stops. So if the sheets are kept still then the clamp is self-preserving using the Yalland system.
The CO2 itself is not being used by anything in the clamp. That is why it is such a good preservative gas, as used in the food industry. What matters is that there is no Oxygen in the clamp. The vacuum also removes the Nitrogen (79 % of air) so the CO2 response fills the gas voids of the clamp with almost exclusively CO2 after the vacuum. There are some other organic gases, but at very low levels.
As long as the only gas in the voids is CO2, it doesn't then matter what pressure it is at. In the video of "Removing the Carbon Dioxide Response" (above) we took the clamp down to a slight vacuum knowing that CO2 was still being produced and would refill to a postive pressure, and not suck air in, because it was only 2 days after sealing. We needed the clamp firm for putting on the safety sheets and it relaxed again afterwards with only CO2 inside. It was not a hard vacuum (300 mbars), but a light one of 100 mbars to make the clamp manageable. By the time we had finished sheeting and weighting, the clamp had relaxed again due to internal CO2 production.
To finish answering the question, as long as the only gas inside the clamp is CO2 then it does not matter how much or how little there is. It is only if CO2 is taken out when it will not be replenished internally that you run the risk of affecting preservation.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

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Next question

As round bales are already well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improve the results compared to just sealing the bag?

Yes.
This can only be done with bagged bales. Wrapped ones can't have a vacuum applied because they will suck in air through the overlaps of the wrapping. Wrapped bales can't be sealed - bagged bales can.
Previous discussions have shown that well compacted bales have about 30 % air inside them. The Oxygen in that has to be used up before silage fermentation starts. Applying a vacuum removes most of that Oxygen so it speeds up silage fermentation and less sugars are lost. Silage quality therefore improves using a vacuum.
If the bag is just sealed then there is more Oxygen to use up and more sugars will be lost. There will also be more infection by yeasts and moulds that use Oxygen. It takes a few days to use up the Oxygen in a bag and that allows significant deterioration in quality.
The almost instant anaerobic conditions that occur when a vacuum is applied to a bagged bale of forage makes it an even better way of making silage than the Yalland system of field clamps. This is due to the timing that is possible.
When a vacuum of 300 mbars is applied to a bagged bale the dramatic shrinkage will demonstrate how much of the bale is air. It will bounce back to its mechanically compacted size during the Carbon Dioxide Response. It won't shrink as much as the hay bales did in the "Bales Pod and Sheet Seam Tests" video, but you should see about 10 % reduction in all directions at 300 mbars vacuum.
The excess Carbon Dioxide Response can be drawn off by vacuum as well to leave a slight positive pressure in the bag.

ploughman1963 said:

Not knocking it- but we regularly get our silage clamps ‘blowing up’ enough to lift the secure covers and mats a metre off the surface of the silage. It’s all down to effective sealing?

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That sounds like a good response that can only have come from within the clamp, so it must be quite effectively sealed to do that. We had this observation from @Richard III a while back so some farmers are managing to get a reasonable seal and the silage should be all the better for that.
If the gas escapes gradually without being let out or sucked out then it is not as good a seal as Sheet Seam would provide, but it is still better than most. If the CO2 inflation is allowed to billow then it can challenge your seals and cause a leak so it is best to take off the pressure deliberately after a couple of days in order to preserve your seals.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

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Third point.

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

Agreed.
This is a very practical way for small scale Vacuum Compressed Silage to be made and protected. Low feed out rates would require something like this approach. Suitable for small holdings.
It is possible to run this appraoch at much larger scale if enough people are available with the will and the skills to attend to the details.

Response to post #391 from @ringi. Original in black and responses in blue.

I can't see how bagged bales are practical with large bales as it needs lifting equipment and at least 2 people. But I see no reason why mini round bales can't be bagged as soon as they are made provided there is a way to run the vacuum pump from the tracker with the bailer still attached. (should be easy to work out a way to store empty bags on a small tractor)

A small scale separate pump like the BL42 and a small generator would fit on the back of a quadbike. It is best to take the bales to their resting/storing place and do the vacuum extraction there.

(The vacuum system should avoid issues with using easy to fit oversized bags. The pipe and tap seems to cost under £15, so leaving one in each bale, need not be issue as they can clearly be reused for many years. I assume there is a way to seal the bag to the pipe so the bag can be reused.)

Similar idea to what I have put on the YVCS website. I agree with re-using pipework, but not bags.

Looking at this as a non farmer it seems livestock farmers have lots of time in the summer but have to make silage quickly due to the modem systems needing the use of costly rented oversized tractors. The oversized tractors also damage the ground and the large bales seem to make it harder for farmers to keep livestock out in fields over winter.
If vacuum pack silage is as good as claimed then it may need half the amount of silage, so the time to make silage for each system should be considered based on how many livestock the silage can feed rather than how many tons are made.
Is there a need to let the grass dry at all before making vacuum pack silage? If not I can see how cutting into a small trailer and making individual small clamps using Sheet Seam and a portable former could work. Maybe even make each clamp on top of a pallet.

Direct cut is very rarely a good idea. Effluent is usually produced with direct cut silage and that reduces quality and creates environmental hazards. Wilting to produce 30 % DM silage has been a major building block in silage making.

How much plastic does small Sheet Seam clumps use compared to bail wrapping?

Good question. I don’t know how to start the Maths on this. The most relevant observation is that Sheet Seam should last for decades whereas wrap lasts one year (hopefully). The sealed sheets in a small vacuum clamp would also only last one year. Similar cost between sheets and wrap, but probably more plastic used in wraps than sheets because of the number of layers.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

Click to expand...

Next question from post #387.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

The sheets next to the silage need to be regarded as disposable and single use.
Think of them like freezer bags or safety gloves. They pick up infections, dirt, holes, tears and distortions during the season and will fail and contaminate if used again. Safety sheets can be used many times but the thinner (125 micron) sealing sheets are single use. Some contributors such as @davidroberts30 feel quite strongly about this when farmers try to reuse old sheets inappropriately.
If one day they become washable then this response might change, but for the forseeable future wraps, sealable bags and sealing sheets are all single use plastics. Reusing them reduces silage quality or results in complete failure.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

Click to expand...

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

Any forage crop can have a vacuum applied to it to speed up the anaerobic phase of the process.
One of the slight differences with some crops, other than grass, is the problem of stalks. If stalks are strong enough they can puncture the plastic sheets, so that needs to be monitored.
This can also be a problem undrneath the clamp on a field site. The surface under the bottom safety sheet must not have anything strong enough to puncture the bottom sheets. Stones and stalks need to be dealt with.
The sward in this year's field of Vacuum Silage had Chicory stems that needed to be watched carefully for causing problems. In grass swards there can be Dock Leaves and Thistles that also cause problems.
Using a flail harvester generally beats stalks into submission within the clamp.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

Click to expand...

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Use of ground for soil covered YVCS clamps is similar to that used by silage bales. It is temporary and can be returned to grass at any time.
The soil around the clamp is moved on and off the clamp each year on a sustainable basis.
The site cost is very small compared with setting up the infrastructure for yard clamps. The covering soil presents no environmental hazard whereas tyres and some other coverings have their own draw-backs.
So yes, greater land area per ton than yard clamps. Similar to silage bales.

ringi said:

A few questions:

Is there a risk that removing too much CO2 will effect the preservation?

As round bales are allready well compacted, does usng a vacuum pump improves the results compared to just sealing the bag?

A small round bale (2.5 foot) sealed in a bale bag then placed in a 1 ton builders bag may give a very nice solution for small scale users, with good protection from damage while moving and saving cost of wrapping machine.

What prevents the plastic covering on a clamp being reused the next year?

Can the vacuum silage system cope with silage from herbal leys?

It seems the "free form" soil covered clamps take up a lot more land then other silage storage solutions.

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way value to let the CO2 out?

What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

Click to expand...

Have anyone tried using the system with a soil covered clamp putting the soil on as soon as the vacuum is created and using a one way valve to let the CO2 out?

Probably not.
Dad and I have not tried that and it is unlikely anybody else has. However, it is a good idea and you will find reference to this approach on the YVCS website. It may well be feasible.
One thing that might cause problems is the speed at which soiling up could happen and another is covering up failures. Allowing the clamp to blow up in the Carbon Dioxide Response makes it obvious that the seals are working. If that never happened because of the release valve then you would not find out about failed seals until the clamp is opened up for feeding out.


What about resealing and vacuum quickly after removing each day's silage?

By the time the clamp is opened up the silage should be pickled well enough to last three days.
The sheets will not be in good enough condition to reseal. Following the YVCS system, the seal is left in place on the sides of the clamp that have not been uncovered and the soil on top is rolled back to create a rolling seal on top of the clamp. These measures slow down air penetration to a manageable rate.
Applying a vacuum to a whole clamp during feeding out would suck in Oxygen and that would accelerate decay.
The "Feeding out in Strips" video shows the method.
YVCS6 Feeding out in Strips.mpg

ringi said:

Then it becomes a two person process, or takes a lot longer, or needs the bales to be left unsealed for a few hours until there is a trailer load. But advoiding damage is key to making vacuum silage worth the effort.



At least with vacuum silage leaks will be very clear. But plastic being thicker so it can be reused would need many years use to justify.

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It will take a genius to devise a sealing sheet that lasts more than one year. They go through hell.
The vacuum process always distorts sheets due to uneven forage density and they can't be used repeatedly. The balance between durability and ease of sealing is very difficult to strike.
Some plastics are destined to be single use. If they themselves are made of recycled material then it is not all bad.