Stack Method.

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 51, 4 December 1929, Page 2

Stack Method.

With ensilage making we follow a practice which we consider disastrous in hay making, namely, we encourage the heating or fermentation up to a certain point, and then by the expulsion of air which naturally follows on account of the great weight of the green material the heating is stopped. In haymaking the agent that preserves the material is “drying,” in ensilage making it is “fermentation” which is really a bacterial action. We will now deal with the changes that take place with the material in the stack and leave the details ot stacking until later.

The material when green is brought in and built to a height of about eight feet and gradually the temperature rises. The rate t which it rises and the height to which it rises will depend on the dryness and siz’ of the material and the way it packs together. This eight feet of material should be left until the desired temperature is reached. The temperature rises fairly rapidly until 130 deg Farh.. It is around about 130 deg. Farh. that the best silage is made. If a farmer wishes to take the temperature of the stack at its different stages (and should do so to obtain a good sample of ensilage), the simplest way to do this is to sink an iron pipe through the centre of the stack, and hang a thermometer down so that it would hang at about the centre of the layer of material which requires the temperature being taken. It generally takes about 24 to 48 hours for the first layer of material to reach the required temperature, but of course this time varies according to the condition of the material used.

When the required temperature 130 deg. is reached it must be checked from rising any higher, as ensilage made with high temperatures turns out in the finished article to be a black, charred product which, although eaten by stock, is not so palatable and has a tar less nutritive value. Now that we have obtained our required temperature, to check it from going any higher means that we have to exclude the air, and to do this we add another layer of 4 to 8 feet of green material. The extra pressure gained by the additional weight of this layer will force the air from the bottom layer and in this way the temperature will be checked. Again the stack should be left till the temperature has risen in the second portion to the required height and another layer added, and so on until the stack is completed. It may seem a bit tedious buildding a stack in layers as mentioned above but it has to be built

in this wav to procure a good palatable and nutritious food. If the stack was built in one operation the result would be that the air would be excluded from tl e

bottom portion of the stack before the required temperature was reached and instead of getting a palatable, nutritious silage, we would get a sour silage or perhaps the temperature would be kept so low that the product would not be cured at all and would be useless.

Another point to be remembered when building a silage stack is that when the sledges or lorries are being unloaded on to the stack to have the stack in such a position in the paddock so that the conveyances can unload on all sides this allows the stack to settle more evenly than it all the unloading was done on one side. (Continued)