All our grassland for silage is on flat, medium to heavy soil. We are on a four cut silage system and the swards are renewed every 4 years. Last year we introduced a subsoiler to help alleviate compaction, with the plan being to sub soil each silage field once in between reseeds.
A quarter of the silage area was subsoiled in the autumn and we thought we had most of the stones collected at the time. A short while later the field was combed twice again for stones. We tried to be as particular as possible.
The field has recovered nicely. We did not roll in the spring because we thought it would be counterproductive. However we recently took in first cut and the contractor picked up a few more stones than he would like in that specific field. This knocked our confidence a bit in subsoiling as the last thing we want to see is a badly damaged harvester, despite our efforts to be as particular as possible.
For those with more experience of sub soiling how do you mitigate against the risk of stones getting missed and posing a risk to silage equipment?
A quarter of the silage area was subsoiled in the autumn and we thought we had most of the stones collected at the time. A short while later the field was combed twice again for stones. We tried to be as particular as possible.
The field has recovered nicely. We did not roll in the spring because we thought it would be counterproductive. However we recently took in first cut and the contractor picked up a few more stones than he would like in that specific field. This knocked our confidence a bit in subsoiling as the last thing we want to see is a badly damaged harvester, despite our efforts to be as particular as possible.
For those with more experience of sub soiling how do you mitigate against the risk of stones getting missed and posing a risk to silage equipment?
