POTATOES AS SILAGE CROP

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 91, 5 July 1930, Page 8

POTATOES AS SILAGE CROP

VALUE FOII FATTENING CATTLE. The following interesting article is from the Manchester Guardian:— Lancashire farmers who had difficulty in disposing of their potato crop last year will be interested in an experiment dealing with the use of potatoes as a silage crop conducted at Kirton Agricultural Institute, Lindsey, Lincolnshire. The protatoes used in the trials were from the 1928 crop and were ensiled in June last, the method of falling being alternate layers of potatoes and hay. The silo was opened in November last, when, apart from slight wastage at the sides where no soil covering had been used, the contents were in satisfactory condition. In a feeding trial two lots of cattle were employed, the first being fed on 301 b. of the potato silage per head per day, with 121 b. o/ raw potatoes, 31b. of Egyptian cotton cake, and Ijlb. of decorticated cotton seed meal with oat and barley straw ad lib. When home-grown beans became available they were gradually substituted in place of the Egyptian cotton cake, so that a really cheap ration was secured. The other group of cattle received a similar ration, except that in place of the silage, raw potatoes in unlimited quantity were used and the decorticated cotton-seed meal was increased to l;flb. The first group of cattle did very well after the first week or ten days when they had settled down to the ration. The second lot, fed mostly on the raw potatoes, did not settle down for a month or more and did not do quite so well, though several animals in both lots were reported as nearly finished when the supply of silage gave out toward the end of February. The verdict of the investigators is that potato silage “is a safe and suitable food for fattening cattle, the cattle eat it rapidly and make satisfactory progress on it, and that this method of preserving surplus potatoes for stock feeding is a practical and inexpensive one.”