Tower Silo Fanning Study

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 10

Tower Silo Fanning Study

The agricultural economics research unit at Lincoln College has begun a study into the present and potential place of cylindrical tower silos in New Zealand agriculture for conserving feed for animals.

These silos are often used In conjunction with the housing of livestock, which are fed on mechanised systems. On the key issue of the economics of these devices under New Zealand conditions. Mr D. McClatchy, a research economist of the unit, says that a second bulletin will present some profitability studies of tower silo enterprises on hypothetical case farms. The reason for these studies being based on hypothetical instead of actual situations, he says, is because of the present lack of sufficient historical ‘real’ farm technical data, and the claim by most present operators that their performances to date with towers, due to initial lack of experience and advice, are not representative of what they will be able to achieve in the future. There would appear to be a fairly wide-spread belief at present among New Zealand farmers and farm advisers that the relatively high capital cost of tower silos and associated equipment makes them an unprofitable investment However, to his knowledge at least Mr McClatchy said, no thorough economic analysis has yet been carried out to test this proposition under any particular set of conditions in this country, let alone under all conditions. In June, 1968, when the survey was started there were 30 known silo operators in New Zealand and the Lincoln unit has been gathering information from 18 of these. Three farmers owned three tower silos, three owned two and the rest one. In addition two men each owned a smaller tower-type grain silo. About three-quarters had silos of the air-sealed type. About half of the farms surveyed were mainly dairy farms, though many of these had associated beef enterprises—mainly dairy beef. On all types of farms the feeding of tower silage was confined largely to cattle, though in one case it was being used as a supplementary sheep fodder. About a third of “tower silo farmers” had pedigree livestock. AU except four of the farmers contacted had, or were constructing barns for the purpose of housing livestock for at least part of the year. It was estimated that fodder conserved in the silos as a proportion of total annual pasture and crop production on a dry matter basis varied from 2 to 40 per cent on individual farms, with the figure for three-quarters of lhe farms being below 20 per cent The proportion of total diet provided from the towers varied from 20 to 100 per cent of total daily intake, depending on the time of the year, the type of animals fed and the farm. Only three farmers fed tower silage at any time as a complete and sole ration. Most of these farmers, Mr McClatchy said, had only limited experience with tower silos and were not sat-

isfied that they had arrived at the most satisfactory or efficient method .of utilisation of their structures. The average time they had had this equipment was two to two years and a half. This lack of experience in many cases also seriously limited the ability of the farmer to answer many of the questions put to him. Twelve farmers felt they were able to make some evaluation of the worth of their over-all investment in tower silos and associated buildings and equipment All of these considered the step to have been worth while—six on the grounds of economic criteria and six when nonprofit factors were considered. Four of the latter thought that the enterprise had not proved profitable on economic grounds alone, taking into consideration the rates of interest which could be expected from the investment of capital in alternative fields.

No farmer indicated he regretted moving into the use of tower silos. More than half indicated ways in which the tower silo development of their farm would have differed had they initially had the benefit of their present knowledge and experience. One emphasised. the need to move slowly to avoid costly mistakes, while another stated that he would have moved more quickly to the present position. The biggest problem appeared -to be a lack of finance in the secondary phase of development. Several farmers indicated that, partly because of an unfavourable swing in the economic climate, and partly because of an underestimation of the increased demands for working capital in the post-purchase years, they had become short of finance and unable to complete the development to the extent which seemed warranted. They were unable to use the full potential of the silos which they had purchased. No farmers in New Zealand were as yet relying on tower silos to the extent of all-year-round zero grazing, he continued, but some showed signs of moving towards this system, which was common in some overseas countries.

The cost of storage in tower silos would depend on the size and number of silos, the frequency of filling and the degree to which the overhead costs of the machinery could be spread across other uses. The evidence suggested that at least with the quantities stored at present by most users in this country and the full range of harvesting equipment spread over only one or two medium-sized silos, this method represented a higher cost a unit of dry matter stored than conventional and . vacuum-pack high moisture silage systems. Most dairy farmers indi-

cated that by feeding tower silage as a supplement to pasture over the early spring and spring flush periods and over bloat and facial exzema periods losses from such metabolic diseases as milk fever and ketosis as well as from bloat and facial exzema had been substantially reduced compared with in pretower days. The fear that the concentration of cattle under feedlot conditions would be predisposing to many other disease problems did not appear to have been borne out in practice. In comparison with hay and conventional silage, Mr McClatchy said, the mechanised feeding of tower silage appeared to offer considerable labour saving at the feeding out stage. The effort required was such that the routine work could be done by an older man or, alternatively a woman or a child. Tower silos, though not numerous, were being used in many different ways on many different types of farm. In several cases the choice of towers had been considerably influenced by some special characteristic of the particular locality or farm, which made a tower silo system more suitable than alternative forage conservation systems.

It should not be concluded, however, says Mr McClatchy, that tower silos can only be justified (economically) in a few special and unusual circumstances. It appeared that a good case existed for this method of conservation on typical units in some lines of production. The best example of this would probably be where there was concentration on out-of-season production, where towers were used to allow high yielding crops to be handled, thus increasing feed production an acre, and where scale of operation was fairly large so as to enable the costs of associated machinery to be spread over a large silo storage volume. It was quite apparent that broad generalisations could not be made about the profitability of tower silo systems. It seemed likely that the profitable use of tower silos for forage conservation would not prove to be restricted to the odd isolated special situation. At present contracting services were not generally available for harvesting and storing tower silage and for effluent disposal. Until there were enough towers to a given district to justify such services the smaller operators, with, for example, one tower silo only, would be forced to adopt the more costly alternative of owning their own equipment. Because they were pioneers the present operators had had to overcome several drawbacks and frustrations, particularly those due to lack of knowledge and to the difficulties of obtaining tfee supply and subsequent reliable servicing of the required equipment. It was quite clear that past performances by the present operators could not validly be taken as representative of what would be achieved with tower silos in this country in the future.