Olga Zarytska

Well-fed cattle give a lot of milk. That’s the reason why dairy producers pay so much attention to cows’ diets and balancing of ration ingredients. Forages take their rightfull place here, especially corn silage. Many trials on how the kernel breakage influences nutrition and digestibility of silage have been conducted for many years. Today no one doubts that we need to do it. Researchers have also observed the stover particle length. As a result, shredlage was invented. Nowadays it is generating a lot of interest among dairy and livestock producers and their nutritionists in Ukraine as well as abroad. Let’s acquaint with a new method closer. 

A new word in an agricultural vocabulary

Shredlage is a new method of harvesting corn silage. Though the idea is more than ten years old, it was realized not long ago. The first field model of shredlage harvester was designed and tested on one of the American farms in 2010. The innovation drew such a response, that 220 Shredlage processors have been sold for the 2013 chopping season, adding to the 39 units already in fields. Today one set of Shredlage crop processors for a harvester costs $29,000, and inquiries are coming in from across the U.S. as well as from Canada and Eastern European countries. Among the first ones, who in 2011 started to study the influence of feeding shredlage, was Randy Shaver, the UW-Madison nutritionist. He noticed the difference between corn shredlage compared to normal processed corn silage.

Find more details in the magazine “Farm and Milk” № 6 (19), December, 2013.