Simon Montgomery Devon and Cornwall Representative of Nickerson Seeds Direct, had the privilege to see 8 Cornish finest producers on their silage qualities on their 2018 made silages, reporting back on their field day in April 2019.
As again Judging was in according with the standard BGS schedule on scoring grass silages, Dry Matter, ME, Crude Protein and Intake factors. He again requested to see costings on all farms he visited. Like myself, the year before, he requested to see costings report and relevant Milk From Forage information, and again found, there is no relationship between silage quality and Milk From Forage on the farms visited.
This was discussed at Cornwall Grassland Field Day, and luckily extensively reported in the BGS journal: Grass and Forage Manager Autumn 2019 Page 3!
https://www.britishgrassland.com/members/page/grass-and-forage-manager
Take Home message:
No Link between Silage quality and Milk From Forage……. We need a new metric?? Answers by e-mail please?
Also Ideally Judging Grassland competition scores need to be adjusted to take into account Milk/Meat from Forage.