A research note: A short survey of key silage-making practices on Northern Ireland dairy farms and farmer's perceptions of the factors influencing silage quality

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dc.contributor.authorFerris, Conrad
dc.contributor.authorLaidlaw, A.S.
dc.contributor.authorWylie, A.R.G.
dc.date.accessioned2023-02-06T15:09:22Z
dc.date.available2023-02-06T15:09:22Z
dc.date.issued2022-11-07
dc.description.abstractNorthern Ireland dairy farmers (n = 174) were surveyed to identify key silage-making practices, and factors perceived to influence the quality of grass silage made on their farms. The majority of farmers (65%) harvested grass for silage three times/year: 62% normally used a contractor, while 47% routinely used a silage additive. Delays to mowing and delays to harvesting due to adverse weather or poor ground conditions were perceived to have a large or very large impact on silage quality (68% and 53% of farmers, respectively). Inadequate wilting, poor-quality swards on owned land, on rented land and “contamination” of first-cut grass with autumn or winter growth herbage were all perceived as having a large or very large impact on silage quality (32%, 27%, 40%, 30% of farmers, respectively). Over the previous decade, 11%, 41% and 37% of farmers claimed a small, moderate or large improvement in silage quality, mainly due to earlier cutting of grass and ensiling better quality swards.
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work was co-funded by DAERA and AgriSearch. Thanks are owed to CAFRE Greenmount for permission to undertake the survey, to AFBI staff who undertook the survey and to the 174 participating farmers
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12518/515
dc.identifier.citationFerris, C.P., Laidlaw, A.S. and Wylie, A.R.G. (2022) ‘A short survey of key silage-making practices on Northern Ireland dairy farms, and farmer perceptions of factors influencing silage quality’, Irish Journal of Agricultural and Food Research. Compuscript, Ltd. Available at: https://doi.org/10.15212/ijafr-2022-0103.
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.15212/ijafr-2022-0103
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherTeagasc
dc.rightsCopyright © 2022 Ferris, Laidlaw and Wylie. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
dc.subjectFarmer perceptions
dc.subjectgrass silage quality
dc.subjectsurvey
dc.titleA research note: A short survey of key silage-making practices on Northern Ireland dairy farms and farmer's perceptions of the factors influencing silage quality
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