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2019 Silage Season

Whitewalker

Member
What volcano is that?

upload_2019-7-7_22-35-57.png



Impressive

Looks like slemish mountain. Been up it with the family
 
W

How high is it possible to get D value?

I am not sure, I remember seeing 75 as a sort of peak value from which most forages would decline as the cellulose/lignin ratio changes. I suspect it may be possible to find a forage with a very high D value because it doesn't lay down lignin with age maybe.

Crudely speaking, it is a rough estimation of digestibility, in that forage, 74% of the material can be digested, the remainder cannot. I cannot remember how they determine it or how it is calculated, I think it had something to do with the effective ME value as well.

Basically, of all the items you see on a silage analysis, D value is the main ready-reckoner. It will be devilishly hard to breed or select plant varieties or species for better D value and so I suspect most breeders all quote roughly similar values, and they similarly decline in line with plant maturity.

Of course the whole high sugar grass thing was a clever bit of marketing and people lost sight of that even though the tiny bit of soluble carbohydrate in grass is dwarfed by the total ME on offer from the structural carbohydrates in most forages.
 

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Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

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On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

This webinar will be...
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