Our Real Science Exchange pubcast always has leading scientists and industry professionals discussing the latest ideas and trends, and tonight, we have two distinguished guests. Dr. Limin Kung and Bonni Kowalke join us to discuss wild yeasts in silage.
Guests: Dr. Limin Kung, University of Delaware, and guest Bonni Kowalke, Stem Ag Consulting
Our Real Science Exchange pubcast always has leading scientists and industry professionals discussing the latest ideas and trends, and tonight, we have two distinguished guests. Dr. Limin Kung and Bonni Kowalke join us to discuss wild yeasts in silage.
Dr. Kung begins by giving an overview of the impacts of wild yeast on silage, where they're either going to anaerobically ferment sugars to ethanol or aerobically; these wild yeasts can lead to spoiled silages and spoiled TMR. (8:32)
Bonni and Limin then go on to detail management strategies and practices for reducing the impacts of wild yeast on silage and TMR, including harvest speed, silage moisture content, pack density, feed-out rate, and additives. (10:59)
Bonni gives her perspective as a consultant about how she works with clients ahead of silage harvest to be able to prevent wild yeast infestation or any other problems. Most of her notes come right after harvest is finished with a list of things the farm wants to do differently next time, which she likens to a game plan for a team sport. (18:09)
Dr. Kung describes how to determine if you have an issue with wild yeast in silage. Primarily, one would see aerobic instability via heating and perhaps molding. There will be a distinct telltale odor as well. Unfortunately, there is no on-farm test; samples must be sent to the lab for analysis. (23:10)
Limin and Bonni give their top issues in regard to silage quality that they see in the field, along with ways to help producers get the very best quality silage off their fields each year. (26:40)
This takes a turn into a discussion about how drone technology could be used in the future for perfecting silage moisture content predictions in the field before chopping. (32:02)
Scott asks Bonni and Limin about the addition of NPN (such as urea or anhydrous ammonia) or sugar sources (such as molasses) to silage and what kind of impact that might have on silage quality. (37:24)
Bonni gives an overview of silage inoculants and additives. (47:13)
Limin and Bonni conclude by comparing the stability of legume silages and corn silages, an overview of inoculation best practices, and their take-home messages to ensure high-quality silage. (51:28)
As mentioned in the show, Bonni Kowalke’s contact information at Stem Ag Consulting is bonni@stemagconsulting.com.
Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.
If you want one of our new Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription, and email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address, and we’ll get a shirt in the mail to you.
Scott (00:00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast we're leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell. I'm gonna be one of your hosts here tonight at the Real Science Exchange, and I'm joined tonight with two guests that will be discussing all things silage, corn, silages Harvest is fast approaching and most parts of the Northern Hemisphere. And so we thought it'd be an opportune time to get everybody together and kind of talk about the basics of making good quality feed for our dairy cattle. But first, let me introduce Dr. Limin Kung from the University of Delaware, Dr. Kung. Welcome. And since this is a virtual pub, I'm gonna ask you what, what's in your glass tonight?
Limin (00:00:52):
Just iced tea.
Scott (00:00:53):
Just iced tea. Well, right, we can go with that. Limin, I'm appreciating your background there, and I believe because I, I know your background. That's Hawaii. Is that right?
Limin (00:01:05):
Actually, I fooled you.
Scott (00:01:07):
You did. So this
Limin (00:01:08):
This is actually the Oregon coast. Okay.
Scott (00:01:11):
Alright. Very well. Well, I'll use, I'll still use that. You did grow up in Hawaii. So why don't you tell us about that and how did you become involved in the dairy industry specifically silage?
Limin (00:01:23):
Oh my gosh. Well, let's see. I did not grow up on a farm. I had a lot of pets. The typical urbanite that had a rabbit and parakeet and tropical fish. I did have a duck and a chicken. And when I went to college, I obviously wanted to do something with animals. I wasn't really interested in veterinary medicine per se. I was more interested in the zoology biological part of the animals. So I went into an animal science department as an animal science major. And really what changed my life completely were two things. One was I had a great advisor that helped me get into undergraduate research. And the second thing is I randomly took a class called Tropical Dairy Production. Go figure. Right? You're in Hawaii,
Scott (00:02:23):
Mm-Hmm.
Limin (00:02:24):
And I merged my interest of ruminants and cows with undergraduate research. And that's what got me to where I have been and am today. And it was a great experience. The first silage I ever made was probably with sugar cane silage. 'cause That's what I did my thesis on. Yeah.
Scott (00:02:51):
Wow. Very interesting. Well, that's a great story. Glad to have you here. I also see we've brought a guest with you. Would you mind introducing your guest?
Limin (00:02:58):
Yeah. So we have Bonnie Kalki with us today. And I've known Bonnie for a couple decades, maybe more, not quite sure. And I think I first met Bonnie when she was actually with Lala Laman Adam Nutrition. And in fact, well, I'll let Bonnie give you her background. Why don't you do that, Bonnie?
Bonni (00:03:23):
Okay. And I know exactly our, the timeframe because my son is gonna be turning 18 and in just a few days. And that is exactly the I went to work for Allman when he was six months old.
Limin (00:03:37):
Yep.
Bonni (00:03:37):
And, and that's how you and I met is we were on the, you were on the speaking circuit and I was qualified to drive you at that point,
Bonni (00:03:49):
And prior to that, I had grown up on a dairy farm in Minnesota. And back then, you know, 120 cows milking cows was, was a large dairy in Minnesota at least. And I then came out to go to school at Cornell, graduated from Cornell, and really felt like if I was gonna be in the dairy industry, I needed to be in New York at that point in time. And so stayed in New York and, and went to work for a regional feed mill and did diets and was on farms and, you know, all the good things that nutritionists get to do with dairy farmers. I did that for eight years and then, and then moved on to Lamond and really focused on silage quality and room function. And learned from great people like clay and Lehman and, and others. And and now now I feel like I put all of that together and really make the whole silage thing completely different than what we did like 20 years ago, where I think 20 years ago, we, we well, it's time to make first cutting, and now we take a much more systematic approach to it. Well,
Scott (00:05:08):
Bonnie, it's great. Yeah, it's great to have you here this evening. Want to thank you for joining us. This is a virtual pub. I'm gonna ask you what's in your glass tonight?
Bonni (00:05:17):
The mudslide, which I was watching the Little League World Series last week when it was raining and all those kids were going down the little League hill. And all I could wonder was how are their mothers ever gonna get the mud out of their clothes?
Scott (00:05:33):
So hence the mudslide. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very creative. Thank you for that.
Scott (00:05:38):
And finally, I'm glad to introduce my co-host and good friend, Dr. Clay Zimmerman. Clay, thank you for joining us tonight. What might be in your glass tonight and my thermos tonight? I have just some hard cider in here tonight. All right. Trying to keep it cool. That's good. I am.
Clay:
So, Scott, what's in your glass tonight?
Scott:
So Clay, fortunately I'm, I'm out of bourbon and well, that's not good. I'm not, I'm not sure. That's a great thing. Unacceptable. It is unacceptable. But I have what I call my forever bourbon, and so what that is, I have a container and when I get down to about an eighth of a bottle, I'll pour it in there. So it's, it's always different, always evolving. So that's what I'm down to now, so I'm out of everything else. So, I'm not sure what I have in, on the glass night. It's kinda like that old what was that Johnny Cash song. About the car and the different years. That's what I'm having tonight. So, anyway, folks, thank you for joining us here tonight on the podcast, and here's to a great one. Cheers.
Bonni (00:06:39):
Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
Speaker 4 (00:06:42):
Tonight's pubcast stories are brought to you by ReaShure Precision Release Encapsulated Choline on the market today, consistently delivering results to your transition cows of higher peak milk, reduced metabolic Disorders, and even in utero benefits to her calf leading to growth and health improvements. Visit balchem.com to learn more.
Limin (00:06:57):
Just real quick, Bonnie, tell them what the name of your consulting company is.
Bonni (00:07:08):
So, my consulting company is called stem, STEM Ag Consulting, and it really is to focus on training and education and systems in, in how to, how to do things better
Scott (00:07:27):
And STEM, does that stand for anything?
Bonni (00:07:30):
So the for service T is for technology, e is for education, and m is for management.
Scott (00:07:40):
Okay. And then do you operate your business mostly in the northeast, or are you countrywide?
Bonni (00:07:46):
Yeah, so I spend most of my time in New York, but I also get into northeast Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. And occasionally we'll get down to Georgia and Florida.
Scott (00:07:58):
Very well. Good.
Bonni (00:08:00):
Especially in January and February.
Scott (00:08:03):
Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Bonni (00:08:07):
They have a lot of sage problems in January and February.
Scott (00:08:12):
Yeah, absolutely. So, Limin, you gave a webinar a few weeks back on silage, and I think the topic was specific to wild yeast. We'd like to cover some of that tonight, but we're gonna be talking all things silage. Why don't you, though, start us off by kind of talking about some of the big themes that you talked about during your webinar?
Limin (00:08:32):
Sure. probably the, the biggest theme, well, one of the big themes was that, you know, wild yeast is a, is in silages is an issue that there are different types of wild yeasts all yeasts that, that are naturally found in the, well, most of the wild yeast that are naturally found in on the plants and in silage are usually a problem. 'cause They're either gonna anaerobically ferment sugars to ethanol, which we don't wanna do. At least when we make silage, we don't wanna do that. We wanna make a good drink, that's great. But not, not, not for cows. And then aerobically these wild yeast can lead to spoiled silages and spoiled tmr. So that's a big problem. And we've gotta be able to control them. And we do know how to control them.
Limin (00:09:28):
We don't know specifically the mechanism of the negative effects on the animals. You know, when silage is spoiled, animals eat less. But the big question is, why do they eat less? Is it a toxin? Is it a smell? Is it a tasting? Is it a combination of all those things? We're, we're not real sure. But we do know that when there's a lot of wild yeast in Silages and tmr, that those silages and total mixed rations will become very unstable and heat and cause intake issues. So that's pretty much what we did, we covered all the nuances of that.
Scott (00:10:07):
Now, is there any things that we can do to reduce the amount of wild yeast in the silage? Can you treat the fields? Can you treat the silage as you're harvesting it?
Limin (00:10:16):
Yeah, so, you know, we really can't do much, from a treatment standpoint on the standing crop. You know, there's been some talk about, well, what happens if you put a fungicide on? And there's really no good research that would show that if you apply a fungicide on the standing crop, that that's gonna give you improved aerobic stability when you feed the silage. So I wouldn't think about going that route. The biggest thing to keep yeast populations down in the silo is really your management and things about, you know, that we talk about, that we've talked about forever, right. Bonnie name some of them, you know,
Bonni (00:10:59):
The well, probably number one would be getting it harvested as quickly as possible. Covering when you have more than, you know, 12 hours or a rain delay. I'd also say something that you always talk about is the importance of the moisture being at that ideal moisture. I, I think you've mentioned that that's number one thing.
Limin (00:11:25):
Yeah. PAC density feed out rate having a good fermentation. I mean, you can certainly also use additives, right, Bonnie, to keep yeast populations down. Silo.
Bonni (00:11:41):
Yep. You can use a hetero like a buchneri, or there's some others now. And also there's acid that you can also use. Those would all be additives that you could put on at the time of harvest.
Limin (00:11:56):
Yeah. Actually a question, oh, sorry. Actually a question that usually comes up that I'm asked is, you know, does the amount of yeast on the plant at harvest, does that really make a difference? And you know, from my mind, that the answer is really no. And because it's what you do after with the silage and the packing and the feed out, that's really where you can make a difference. And what comes in from the field, if you do a really good job, you can stop all their growth and kill 'em. But if you do, if you have a really low population coming in from the field and you do a really bad job with management, everything's gonna explode on you.
Clay (00:12:38):
So the conditions in the field don't really contribute much to this. It's all about, it's all about what happens in the silo. Yeah,
Limin (00:12:47):
I mean, I would say so. I mean, you know, there, there might be, it's a few oddball conditions in the field that might cause high yeast loads like bird damage or hail damage or something like that, you know, does, you know, have a lot of earworm or, you know, blight something.
Limin (00:13:04):
Something, yeah, blight, something that destroys the integrity of the plant might give you a higher yeast count at the beginning, but again if you did a really good job in getting that material into the silo and packed and anaerobic and taken care of, those populations will decline naturally with time.
Bonni (00:13:25):
I was just gonna say, I think that's really the challenge because we talk about how, you know, if you are able to do this the way that you wanted to do it, then you can get control of those yeast and, and mold populations. But just like today sometimes things don't always go the way that you want them to. And I feel like on farms, there's, there's hours that things work the way that you want them to. The packing guy is, you know, packing the way he's supposed to be, the pushing guys, pushing the way he is supposed to be, the truck drivers doing his job, and all these things are, are working the way that they're supposed to. But so often all it takes is one, one cog in that in or one, what is that? A cog in the chain? Cog
Limin (00:14:15):
In the wheel. Cog in the wheel, in the wheel.
Bonni (00:14:18):
Take the mud away from me. So, but my point is my, I did have a point that it's so easy for things to get derailed just by one thing. And I, and I've seen it happen where we've done a pre-harvest meeting, everybody knows what they're supposed to do, and then one person gets called away or one tractor goes down and you stop in and, and you look at it and you're like, what happened? And, and it's like, well, this one thing happened in the chain of events after took our perfect situation into a, into a, a bit of a, of a domino effect. And, and so I spend, even though a lot of folks don't like to spend time talking about what can we do when things go wrong, you don't need consultants or Lehman or any of us to help you with the day. That's perfect. You're really looking at what I do when the unexpected always happens? And, and that's where I, I think one of the things that silage quality really gets off to a good start is when we start with what's going to go wrong. 'cause Something will,
Scott (00:15:38):
So let's say one of those cogs happened and now you've got a wild yeast problem in the silage. What do you do?
Limin (00:15:47):
So the first thing I guess I would do is to try to make sure that you realize what the issue is in your silo, right? Do you really have a wild yeast problem? Are the counts really high? Do you have poor aerobic stability? And then you have to really pray a lot, because one of the things that happens when you have a bad silage coming out of a silo is that there's not a lot that you can do. I mean, there are some little band-aids, for example. You can prevent spoiling silage coming out of the silo. You can prevent it or, or not prevent it, but you can slow down its spoilage in the total mix ration with the TMR Saver product, right? But that's a bandaid because you didn't stop what happened before you put the TMR saver on, you're preventing it from getting worse, but you didn't stop the initial destruction from going on.
Limin (00:16:57):
So, you know, that's not the total answer, but it's the only thing that you can do, because there's nothing that you can do to kind of go back in and retreat the silo that's high in silage and, you know, make it completely stop. So that's where, you know, we kind of pound people on the fact that you've take all care of all these things that Bonnie's been, and I have been talking about prior to feeding, so that you don't get into that situation where you're looking at a bandaid to to, to help solve a problem that's, you know, where there's a huge gash and it's really, you know, a bleeding's just not gonna stop, you know, efficiently. So
Scott (00:17:45):
That's, that's all about prevention. It's,
Limin (00:17:47):
Sorry,
Scott (00:17:47):
Clay, all about prevent. I was just gonna ask Bonnie, Bonnie, so as a consultant, what do you do ahead of the harvest to make sure that farmer and that silage is in a position to be able to prevent wild yeast infestation or, or any other problems? What does that process look like and how soon do you start?
Bonni (00:18:09):
So some of that planning actually started last fall, right after harvest. You'd be surprised at how many people know exactly what they would do differently right after we've finished. And so that's where I really get my notes from, is after harvest, we'll kind of do a download of what went right, went what, what went wrong. And then about this time of year for corn silage, we'll get those notes out. Or, or if there was big things we had to do differently we might've already been working on that this summer. But then get the little details, you know, how many trucks are we gonna need? Do we have the drivers that are coming back? Do we need to do a training meeting for everyone so everybody knows what the big, you know, overview plan is? And, and then review, you know, packing rate of fill, how are we gonna do dry matters?
Bonni (00:19:09):
How are we going to evaluate fields? Who's gonna be the scout? Who's going to pull the trigger on whether we're not going to, or we're, we're not going to go into this field? It, it really is again, putting together a system and, and most of everything I'm saying is something that Lehman has taught me at some point in time. So I, I don't mean to be stealing what Lehman has told me. But the main thing is, is to have people that can say yes or no, and, and you empower people. And I've seen really great things happen when you empower everyone from the truck driver to, you know, the chopper guy on how fast the material's gonna come in where the material is going to go. It's really fun when the truck driver starts, we'll, we'll send a message to somebody and say, Hey, the packing guy isn't pushing up six inch layers. He is, he is pushing up too thick of layers to get our good density. So when you get it to be, harvesting is a team sport, that's when really cool things, really cool things happen. And so everything I do prior to that is to, is to get that team sport headed in the right direction. Get that, that makes sense.
Scott (00:20:33):
You know, that's a great analogy. I love that. The team, sorry, Leman, that the team sport aspect. Now, do you get those folks involved, like in the fall right after the harvest again? Do you get everybody involved, or is that more the managers that you're working with? So,
Bonni (00:20:47):
So it, it does depend, but what we really try and do is, is right away afterwards, it's, it's kind of a download of, you know, everybody tell us what went right, what went wrong, and then we'll, we'll write all that down and then, and then get the managers together to address the things that, that are the most important. So there might be 20 things that get written down as, you know, bullet points of what was good and what was bad, and then the managers will decide, you know, what are the two or three things that we're gonna focus on fixing for next year. Mm-Hmm.
Limin (00:21:22):
Yeah. I was just gonna say that I had a, at a, one of the things that I remember for that I've remembered from visiting farms, a lot of farms throughout the US. The one, one farm I remember was on, there was a a big bunker pile drive over pile. And there was no plastic on it at all, at all,
Limin (00:22:13):
You know? Well, what, you know, it's like, it wasn't me, you know, it's not, it's not my responsibility. No, it's not mine. No. It's, it's not, well, it wasn't mine, you know, and, and so that's like, again, you know, the perfect example of what Bonnie's talking about, you know, someone should have had the responsibility that said, you know, no, that's your responsibility. And, you know, yeah, it blew off how many times, but then you gotta fix it. Right? And yeah,
Clay (00:22:39):
No, I was just gonna say for those of you that are, not watching on YouTube, but rather listening on the podcast Dr. Kong's face was much like the face from the little boy on home alone, it looked a lot like that. That was. I was wondering, you know, assuming something did go wrong and you, and you have a wild yeast issue and, and the silage, how do you determine if you have an issue? What, what can you test for it? What, how do you go about doing that?
Limin (00:23:10):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the most obvious thing is that if you do have a wild yeast problem, it, it, you're, you're gonna see aerobic instability, right? You're gonna see heating, you might see some molding that's occurring, you're gonna smell it. You're gonna have that kind of, what I always call the, the old musty sock gym sock Yeah. Smell. and you know, those are real telltale signs that something bad is happening and it's, it, probably was initiated by wild yeast. You can take samples right, Bonnie from the field, but the issue, the issue always is, you know, getting that sample to the lab and getting the analysis back in a timely fashion so that that sample doesn't deteriorate in transit. And that's always a challenge for everybody. I mean, there's, unfortunately is no easy one minute, two minute, five minute test, or even even an hour test on farm.
Limin (00:24:17):
There's nothing on farm that you can test for the numbers of yeast. It has to go to the lab. And because of that, in, you know, in the wintertime it's not bad because even if it gets hung up in the mail, it's not bad. But in the summertime, if a sample gets hung up in, in, in transit for two or three days I can almost guarantee you that the yeast numbers at the lab do not reflect what were, what was there, you know, when the sample was taken. So, and I, and you know, having said that too, you know, then, you know, you have to ask yourself, well, if this sample is heating and spoiling and smells bad, do I really need a yeast count? Right? right. You know? Yeah.
Bonni (00:25:03):
The biggest thing that I use is just the difference in temperature. If, if my core temperature, let's just say it's, it's 80 and they mix the feed, and, and the TMR again, I'm just making up a number, is 85 when it gets dropped in front of the cow if I come back 12 hours later, and that is, is now 95 or a hundred or 105, I know I've got a yeast problem, I don't have to send it off to the lab. I know that that heating issue is coming from yeast that are either growing in the corn silage or the haylage, or it could be wet brewers or, or something that got put into that TMR. So that's the easiest, quickest way. Yeah. Now, if I, you know, obviously if I wanna send it in and find out exactly what then, then you, you can do that, but you can't freeze it and you're probably better off overnighting it. And, and again, now you're looking in the rear view mirror just a little bit.
Scott (00:26:13):
Yeah. Lehman, you probably get a lot of calls when things are going wrong, right? I'm sure that's when your phone starts ringing. So what would you, how would you characterize the top three problems or mistakes that cause the most problems?
Limin (00:26:28):
Hmm. Top three. Yeah, that's a good one. In terms of aerobic instability,
Scott (00:26:37):
I, I would just say silage quality overall
Limin (00:26:40):
Silage quality overhaul. Of, for me, number one is probably extreme dry matters. So harvesting either stuff is way too wet or way too dry. So, you know, getting dry matter. That's probably the number one thing. Number two is probably PAC density and covering, so I'll put those two right together. And I don't see it quite as often as I used to see decades ago, but number three, you know, I mean, I, I'm just trying to think here on my feet, probably is actually harvesting at, at a, you know, overly mature material, you know, that and, and that then affecting quality from a nutritional value. You know, 'cause if you're gonna harvest corn silage at 50% dry matter, I mean, you know, that's what you got, right? I mean, there's not much you can do to fix that. Or if you've got full bloom alfalfa you know, you, you, it can still ferment really well and be in style perfectly, even if it's full bloom, but the feeding value is garbage, right? Mm-Hmm.
Scott (00:28:37):
Bonnie, how do you work with your producers to, well, let's, let's take the first one talking about dry matter. How do you, how do you determine what's the best way to determine what dry matter you wanna start harvesting it at or when it's at that right. Dry matter? So,
Bonni (00:28:52):
I will answer your question. I, I'm gonna ask Lehman a question first of those, of those two dry matter or dry matters that you could be at, you're saying that you think the, the worst is being too dry versus too wet?
Limin (00:29:09):
No, I'm saying that both, both extremes are bad. Are
Bonni (00:29:13):
Are bad. Okay.
Limin (00:29:14):
Are bad. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not trying to characterize that one is worse than the other. I, I would say that both are, both are bad.
Bonni (00:29:21):
Okay.
Limin (00:29:21):
Both have their their limitations, you know, too wet, too wet, too wet. Silages usually means too much fermentation, too much wild acetic being produced with legumes. Two wet silages increases a chance of material going clostridial on you too wet corn silage, probably you're gonna end up with intake issues because of the high acidity. And then if you're on the other side, and then, and then of course, too wet, you have potential for runoff too. Stuff that's too dry is you've got issues with packing density. You've got issues with pac PAC density. I'm sorry, I said that. PAC density ADIN formation because of heating and heat damage, protein and haage. So you got, you know, it just kind of depends on, you know, you want to stay out of the extremes and stay someplace in the middle.
Bonni (00:30:21):
I would also add kernel processing. The wetter typically is easier to process the dryer. It gets you, sure. Better have your processor right on the money.
Limin (00:30:31):
Right, exactly. Which
Bonni (00:30:32):
A lot of guys do these days. So back to the question about you know, how to, to help dairymen get to that, that perfect dry matter. A lot of producers are using a crop management team or a crop management specialist that go and, and scout the fields. I also have farms that go and do their own scouting and, and then we'll bring back samples. And you can use of course the coster tester from, you know, years ago, or I know some people use the microwave. I use two different instant dry matter testers now. One is the N I R for farm, and the other is the s o the s o cup. And both of them are really well, they're convenient because in 30 seconds or a minute, you have the answer to the question that you're looking for. And, and the second is, if you don't believe it, you, you don't have to wait another hour. You can, you know, re-sample and, and see if you get that number a second or third time.
Scott (00:31:50):
You know, in our earlier conversation, Bonnie, you had talked about your use of using drones and technology. And I'm kind of curious as to your experience with that, and where do you see that going?
Bonni (00:32:02):
So I was really excited about the future and I still am during that period of time, and it was about four or five years ago the technology is there to fly the drones. And with the certain kind of sensors, you can see how tall the crop is, and, and you can look for plant populations and you can look for disease. There's lots of agronomic things that technology allow you to do. What I was more interested in was to, towards harvest, being able to to look at dry matter and looking at a whole field. Let's just say I've got a 20 acre field. And being able to fly that and look at the vegetation and being able to determine the, the range of, of dry matter and moisture in, in those plants.
Bonni (00:33:03):
And then being able to, to map that out and say, 85% of the crop in this 20 acre field is at the optimal chopping moisture. Let's go chop this. Instead of the way that we do it now, we go into the field and we hope we get a representative sample and we chop it. And then that determines whether we chop that field or not. What I found out was that it's very time consuming, and the technology isn't quite there yet. There's new sensors that are coming out that will get down below the canopy. 'cause That's really where your plant starts to dry out more than it does from the top. And so I think that in the future, that is going to be a, a, a great tool. It just isn't the technology isn't quite there yet. And also the user friendliness of it, that each field really had to be calibrated. And so that works really great when you're out west and, you know, you have hundreds of acres in one field and, and you can calibrate, and that's really easy. But here in the northeast where maybe our average field is 20 acres that was just incredibly time consuming to calibrate for each 20 acre field. So I'm looking forward to living long enough to see this new technology
Scott (00:34:33):
So I'm kind of curious, the sensors that go underneath of the canopy, how are they deployed? Are these they, they wheeled type machines?
Bonni (00:34:44):
No, it, it's the, no, it's, it's right on the, it's right on the drone. And again, don't, now you're asking me for
Scott (00:34:53):
Information.
Bonni (00:34:53):
I don't even know how it works. Okay. But it, it does go below the canopy, and I don't exactly know what or how
Limin (00:35:02):
Some of that is. Is lidar right? Bonnie? Is it some of the sensors? So lidar is that, I don't, I can't remember what the acronym stands for, but LIDAR is the, are the sensors where they've discovered if you ever watch National Geographic, they've discovered in Guatemala, Ecuador, they've discovered Mayan ruins that were never, that they never, ever knew were there. And because the lidar radar can actually break through the canopy of all the forests and the trees and show manmade structures,
Bonni (00:35:40):
That's crazy. Yeah.
Scott (00:35:42):
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit of a technology junkie and always you know, enamored with what's next. Do you guys have any insight into what's next beyond perhaps drones or improving their capabilities?
Bonni (00:35:56):
I think that, again, as they become more user friendly and, and people get more and more comfortable with them, I mean, people some people are using them now for inventory inventory management, I see us not very far away from also being able to use them for flying to determine what the, the of the, the yield is going to be for, for volume. Because it can tell you how, you know, how tall the plant is. And I think that would be hugely beneficial instead of saying, well, I hope it all fits, or we'll just go higher when we get above the walls, which is a safety issue. And so I, I think that it's just going to make our decisions better and us and our, our our folks able to yeah, make better decisions and more timely, timely decisions. One, one other thing just, just as I know that there's some farms that fly them will fly the field quick in the spring to look for wildlife. I have other farms I know look for sinkholes down in the south. So there's, there's some really practical things that you can do with a drone that has nothing to do with inventory or, or quality.
Scott (00:37:24):
Hmm. Very interesting. Yeah. You know, changing directions just a little bit. I remember when I first graduated from college, many, many years ago, I was working for a feed company, much like you or Bonnie, and we were selling a silage additive that contained urea and molasses called l ss a 100. And I'm kind of curious about how you guys feel about adding you know, n p n in the, in the form of either urea or, or anhydrous or, and also perhaps some sugar sources like was in l s a 100 would like to handle that one, clay. Yeah. You act like you've heard of this one before.
Clay (00:38:07):
You're taking me back a long ways on this one.
Limin (00:38:12):
Me too. So I'll actually start, I actually kinda, I'm gonna say I kind of grew up on with clear sinuses,
Limin (00:38:25):
Because of anhydrous ammonia. You know, I went to Michigan State to do my PhD, and my PhD work actually was combining anhydrous ammonia, corn silage with heat treated soybean meal. And so and I remember the guys at the MSU dairy, you know, when we turned that anhydrous on guys in the on the, on the factor just running as fast as he could to get away, and everybody in awe of like, you know, iced lines in the middle of the August and September and all the lines icing up because of the anhydrous super cooling. And you know, back then you know, that was all precipitated for those of you who are old enough like me to remember that because of the energy crisis and the, the Arab oil embargo and, and you know, that this is where anhydrous came from because of, of the o you know, o the cost of soybean meal and protein supplements was so high that they were looking for alternative sources of nitrogen that they could free ruminants.
Limin (00:39:40):
And that's where anhydrous came from. You know, the gas super cools in a cold flow unit. And so the tank is gas put in the cold flow unit, it changes back to a liquid, and it looks like, it looks like sparkling water actually, when you look at it. And you know, and back then it was great because it did increase the crude protein, you know, you, you put on, if you, if you put on, and if the anhydrous was put on correctly and it was retained on the plant because a lot of people had the anhydrous in the wrong place of on the chopper, and you'd lose, I mean, I know farms that lost 90% of what they put on it never stayed on the plant because they didn't have the, a applicator in the right position. But when they did, if you put on, you know, four to five pounds of anhydrous per ton of corn silage, you'd, you'd increase protein from eight and a half to about 12.5 to 13.
Limin (00:40:41):
And then obviously there were some times where people over applied and you'd get stuff that was like 16 or 17, that would be a nightmare. But, you know, you'd have a, you'd almost increase accrued protein content by 50% and much cheaper than putting in a couple more pounds of soybean mayo. And of course, anhydrous is very antifungal, and it buffers the silage as well. So fermentation is also longer. So you add an antifungal compound, fermentation is longer, you get more natural acetic, so you get all the things that kill yeast. So the great thing about anhydrous ammonia treated sage was that it actually was very, very stable. I mean, that stuff never spoiled aerobically. But in today's world you know, just from a safety factor, and I would not be messing around with anhydrous urea doesn't really do the same thing in terms of aerobic stability. It does increase n but it doesn't really improve aerobic stability by itself. So urea is different from ammonia in that aspect. And Bonnie, you want to talk about sugars or,
Bonni (00:41:59):
Yeah. So I think molasses was one of those things that, that kind of comes up every once in a while, especially before inoculants got to be, I'm gonna say more, more proven. And the whole idea was that if we, if we provide enough sugar or we provide more sugar, that fermentation is gonna go very fast and that's gonna save nutrients. The downside I see with molasses is if you didn't get blessed by Mother Nature, with the good bacteria coming in off the field, you're also gonna make the bad bacteria grow that much faster with the, with the addition of molasses. So it's not a guarantee. Kind of comes down to, or at least the way I look at it, is do you feel lucky? And there are so many other things that you can add these days, you know, with your hool lactics or your, your combination bacterial products that, that take all the luck and, and guesswork out of it. That is, that's just a much better a, a better opportunity than, than the molasses. Molasses might've been a good option years ago, but like a lot of things we, you know, we've traded them for better things.
Limin (00:43:20):
Yeah. And, I'm gonna say that practically speaking, in today's world, they're very, very few instances where fermentable carbohydrates are limiting in a silage crop. I mean, it's almost non-existent, right? I mean, they're, the only time that you might be really low in fermentable sugars is if you had a crop that was you know, wilted for an extremely long period of time and, and respired in the field and got rained on and, and then just lost all its fermentable sugars, then you might, you might benefit by putting on a, a little bit of sugar. But e even if you, even if you were in that situation, you know, in today's world again, where you see us moving away from small farms able to put on an additive like molasses at a blower to an upright, how do you do that to a farm that's bringing in 60 to 80,000 tons and get and, and get practicality And the, the practicality of putting on two or 3% sugar and putting it on
Scott (00:44:32):
So
Limin (00:44:32):
That it's
Scott (00:44:32):
Distributed evenly is the, the logistics is, it is frightening.
Bonni (00:44:39):
Yeah. You, you're back to, you're back to get the moisture right. Get the packing right, and get it covered. Right.
Limin (00:44:45):
Right.
Scott (00:44:46):
Yeah. Play from a nutritionist perspective, can you talk a little bit about the benefits for a nutritionist and a dairy farmer for having good silage, good quality silage? What are those benefits and then, and what are some of the downsides to not having good silage and maybe not have done some of the right things upfront?
Clay (00:45:07):
Well, the benefits, and, and you know, Lehman did a great job discussing, you know, some of this during the webinar, but, but obviously, you know, if you put up poor quality silage, it will affect dry matter intake, right? You know, you have heating, secondary heating that's occurring, you start affecting dry matter intake. You, you will definitely affect milk production and, and other things on the farm. So you just can't make up nutritionally for you know, for poor quality forages. And anything that will hurt dry matter intake is, is, is really, really going to, to take a big toll on, on production. It's going to, it's gonna raise feed costs to try to, to try to compensate, you know, for these poor quality forages. So it, you know, the, the best thing you can do from an economic standpoint is put up as much high quality forage as possible. It just makes every life much easier on the dairy, much more profitable to do things right and, and, and cut down on spoilage. It improves fiber digestibility, right? Lehman, you saw that. And, and so of your work, right, these spoiled silages actually reduce fiber digestibility. I don't know, has that ever been shown in vivo to show that? We can certainly show it in vitro. Yeah.
Scott (00:46:39):
We can show it in vitro
Scott (00:46:40):
In vivo,
Limin (00:46:42):
Maybe not. But
Scott (00:46:45):
We, I mean, for sure the intake issue is, you know, the problem, right?
Clay (00:46:49):
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott (00:46:54):
Funny, I'm gonna kick it back to you. You were talking a little bit before about silage additives. Is there such a thing as a best practice in terms of a silage additives or inoculants that you should use? Does a very depending on the conditions, does it vary by geography? Can you just kind of walk us through a little bit of that,
Bonni (00:47:13):
All of that, all of what you just said is true? It really comes down to the management on the farm and what they're really trying to accomplish and also what their challenges are. I mean in Florida and Georgia or any of those southern states, you're gonna have aerobic stability, and heating issues pretty much year round. Whereas in the northern in the northern States, we get about six months of the year where we don't have to worry as much. We call it the summer management and then the winter management. And, you know, with, just as an example with plastic in the winter we don't have to worry about the plastic as much because the snow cover or snow holds it down. And, and we've got the temperature that is also keeping it the yeast from growing if that, if we were gonna have a spoiling issue.
Bonni (00:48:17):
Whereas in the summertime, everybody's gotta be on, on their best game. So yeah, it, I guess there's, there's probably, you know, five or six questions that you ask when you're trying to decide, you know, what inoculant or what additive you're going to be using. And it's, you know, what's the crop? What's the challenge? How well it will it get packed? When will it be fed and, and how fast are you going to feed it? I mean, those would be some of the, the major questions that you would, that you would end up asking. And I wanted to circle back to something that Clay had said. I agreed with everything, and, and I just wanted to add, when, when forage quality gets in the way of you adding that one or two pounds, or that, that next point of, of solids you, you don't get it, you don't get it back the next time you do something.
Bonni (00:49:13):
Right? So those two pounds that you didn't get, just, just as an example with milk but it could be two points of protein or two points of fat. I don't get to climb that ladder again. And, and so when I missed it, I, I, I never get it back. And I, and I see so many farms that when they do get their silage quality right, and their consistency right after a year of, of consistent forages, you know, all of a sudden they're, they're they're up two pounds, or they, they've made that goal of the solids that they wanted to to get to. And you ask them, well, what did you do? And sometimes it's just, gee, everything just got really consistent and, and here we are and that makes it sound so easy, But, but it really is just doing all those little things right, every day and putting one day after another.
Scott (00:50:12):
I'd say, when all those things happen, that's when Clay takes credit for all of it, right? As the nutritionist, right. Well, absolutely. Well, you get the blame when it goes wrong. That's right. So you might as well take credit when it goes Right. Good.
Bonni (00:50:26):
All Clay's fault.
Scott (00:50:27):
Yep. Lehman are there any big things that we should have covered today that we did not
Speaker 4 (00:50:28):
Tonight's last call question is brought to you by NitroShure Precision Release Nitrogen. NitroShure delivers a complete TMR for the room and microbiome helping you feed the microbes that feed your cows. To learn more about maximizing microbial protein output while reducing your carbon footprint, visit balchem.com/nitroshure.
Bonni (00:50:57):
I actually, I did have, I was gonna ask you a question about it. Sure. 'cause I hear this occasionally and more so this time of year that, gee, you know, I, I treat my haage and I, and I know I need to treat that, but the corn silage, do I really need to treat it that's gonna ferment without me doing anything, isn't it? I mean, I, I hear I hear that a lot, and I, and I feel like we've heard that for years. So I, I'd like you to, yeah.
Bonni (00:51:27):
Tell us the story on that.
Limin (00:51:28):
So, so, you know, here's, here's the issue is corn silage and, and versus the, the two big crops, let's focus on that, right? So corn silage versus alfalfa being a legume, right? So they differ in that. The ease of making silage is very high for corn silage. It is very difficult to make good alfalfa silage, right? We know that because of the buffering capacity of the alfalfa. And so when we look at where things need help, you know, something like corn silage, yes, corn silage and sage very quickly and probably doesn't really need that much upfront help. But where corn silage needs help is at the backend during storage and feed out, because corn silage has a much higher probability of going aerobically in, you know, of spoiling aerobically at the, at that backend right, than a legume. Now actually, that question had come up in the previous webinar.
Limin (00:52:37):
You know, why is it that alfalfa phages appear to be more stable than corn silages? And that's a very good question, and I, I, I think I probably didn't answer that really well in the, in the webinar, but you know, muck for years and others like myself have, have tried to understand why there's that kind of subtle difference between stability between legumes and corn silage. And to, I can tell you that from a research standpoint, there is no one specific, one or two specific things that I can tell you that are really responsible for those differences, muck. And, and some of his colleagues tried to look for those differences, and were unable to identify what specifically caused those, that stability difference between a legume and an alpha and a corn silage. But we know that it's there. It's not to say that legumes don't ever heat, because we know they do, they do, but they just tend to be more stable than corn silage and us.
Limin (00:53:42):
And, if you just lump all the corn crops together, whether it's early, SnapID, you know ground shelled corn high moisture anyway, and corn sides, all those crops have this really high propensity to spoil aerobically if they're exposed to air. And so those crops, the corn crops need help with the narra type products that are making antifungal compounds like acetic acid, right? It could be narra, the newer hetero lactics include hagar eye, they might include diallo vRAN, and they're usually coupled with a homolactic. But, but really, the, the, the, the big guns are coming from these heteros, the b the dialo, oran, and the kilgar eye. They're the ones that are making the CIC to keep the wild yeast population down low. The b the legum products when you compare them to corn, they need most of their help upfront during fermentation, because fermentation is slow.
Limin (00:54:51):
So they really can benefit with the classical homo lactic or organisms like POC, caucus lactobacillus, plantarum, lactobacillus, KCI, those types of bugs where you're really gonna drop the pH more quickly make a more efficient fermentation, save a little dry mat, or save a little bit of energy front. Now the backend for legumes, if you're on the dry side, then those legumes could also probably benefit from a combo with the hetero lactics, because dry legumes are going to have a higher propensity to go aerobically unstable as well, because the PAC density is poor, where you don't need the hetero lactics, like buchneri is in really, really wet crops. You don't wanna, if you've got a crop that's going up at, you know, less than 28 to 30% dry matter, you're probably not gonna benefit from adding a buie or a dial of orange type product. You just don't need it there. Those crops are gonna naturally ferment wild seeds at a level high enough that you're gonna have kind of natural inhibition of some of these wild yeast populations. So the bottom line is, is bottom line for me for corn crops is combo product with the ri hetero lactic type products. And then for the legumes, if you're really wet on the wet side, hool lactic, if you're on the, the real dry side, the combo with Homolactic and the hetero lactics, you wanna Anything else, Bonnie?
Bonni (00:56:33):
I, I was just gonna add that I think the heteros originally got a, maybe a bad name, but it, again, that was historic because when they first came out they were, they were at as inoculates all by themselves. They didn't have the POC occurs or the plantarum. And, and so there was a little bit of a, a loss of dry matter in the, in the initial fermentation even though you save way more at, at feedout, but I, I don't see straight buchner eye products or, or those hetero lactics by themselves anymore. I think in the marketplace the combination product is, is is the one that's being Yeah. You know, sold for, for corn silage and for haage.
Limin (00:57:25):
Yeah, I think for high moisture corn, you might, you might see some straight IDE type products.
Bonni (00:57:32):
Yeah. You could do that for Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't disagree with
Limin (00:57:36):
Yeah. With that, yeah. For
Bonni (00:57:38):
High moisture corn. Yeah.
Limin (00:57:42):
So how, how, okay, go ahead.
Scott (00:57:45):
Go ahead, Lehman. See what you got.
Limin (00:57:47):
So, yeah, so Bonnie, how, how important is it to, for farmers to prepare for inoculation with, in terms of water quality, to set up cleanliness of the tanks, where the tank's gonna be? Do you wanna maybe comment on that? Because I, I see that as a, a really big issue in a lot of farms where people just kind of, it's almost like they're treating it like bad milk replacement or something you know, just, I'm just gonna throw, throw this stuff in that bucket and mix it up and it's supposed to work, right?
Bonni (00:58:23):
Bonni (00:59:16):
Number two is the, the, the water needs to be potable water. Again, there might be individual manufacturers that have a different protocol, but most of the ones that I've worked with, it's, it's potable water. Something that you would, would drink yourself. And, and then also look at the label as to how long the bacteria is going to survive in, in that cool water. Most of the research that Lehman did a few years ago I think you had it at 85 degrees for a period of time, and, and we lost quite a few bacteria. Like the, the shelf life went down like half, was it?
Limin (01:00:05):
95 higher than 95 is, is is bad
Bonni (01:00:08):
Higher than 95. Okay? So, so again, if you're the, the insulated coolers, or now the, the choppers are also having their, their insulated tanks on there. Not the big ones by the, by the engine, but the, the smaller ones that are about 10 gallons those will keep that water away from that 95 degrees and, and will keep those bacteria alive. You think about it this way, you don't want your bacteria arriving onto the plant where you want to make lots of acid very quickly, feeling like it's half dead. You want it to be a, a, a robust bacteria that's ready to take sugars and make acid and, and, and do its thing and, and not be near death or, or dying when it gets there. So cold water, keep it cool, get them on there. Again, different manufacturers might have you know, that you have to use it in 24 hours or 48 hours, but, but you know, listen to your, your rep, listen to your manufacturer's directions.
Bonni (01:01:21):
The swag isn't as good. On, on bacteria. You really wanna be, you know, doing what, what they, what they're recommending oh. And they don't, they don't travel wherever they get sprayed on or land, that's where they're going to hang out. They aren't walking to California, they aren't walking, you know, to the other side of the bunk. 'cause You didn't, you didn't, you didn't get it on that load. Yeah, every load, every ton, every pound has to get applied correctly because otherwise we get like, huh, I wonder why that didn't work. And, and usually my first question is, well, did we really apply it, you know, the way it was supposed to be? And, and did it really get applied on every load? 'cause Sometimes it's surprising you, I'm sure you guys have this in nutrition too, that when they mixed up enough for, you know for 500 ton that day, it came out to be exactly 499 tons before they ran out, you know, just perfect. I'm like, wow, my, my cookies never come out to be equal dozen. But that's because somebody's eating 'em as they're getting baked. But that's a whole nother story.
Scott (01:02:48):
Different story. Well, listen folks, I told you in the beginning I was having a bourbon in my glass. What I didn't tell you is this also is an hourglass for whatever reason, it takes about an hour to empty it. So, as I see it, we've got two choices. One, we can call it quits now or two. I can go get another drink and we can go for another hour. So it's kinda up to you guys. Listen, this has been a great conversation. You guys have been great guests. I've learned a lot. It's been very entertaining. What I'd like to do is kind of close this out with just a question from each of you, and I'm gonna start with Dr. Zimmerman, Dr. Zimmerman, from a nutritionist perspective, what are a couple things you'd like to leave with our audience tonight?
Clay (01:03:30):
When it comes to putting up, you know, good quality forge, we're at corn silage harvest. Now you only have one chance to get it right for the year, right? So make sure you do it right, so we can do everything we can to help our clients put up, put up good quality silage. Yeah.
Scott (01:03:48):
Thank you for that. Clay, Bonnie, been a great guest. A wealth of knowledge. I'm sure that we've got people out there that's gonna want to hear from you. What we're gonna do is we're gonna put your contact information in show notes, if that's all right. And great. Yep. And with that, I'd, I'd like you to kind of share a couple key takeaways for the audience as well.
Bonni (01:04:10):
So I'm gonna say two things. One is, as you're planning your silage harvest don't make it too complicated. Focus on one or two, maybe three things that are key to you having quality silage this year. And then, you know, inform and empower your, your workforce so that they, that they can help you accomplish that and do it safely. We didn't get a chance to, we didn't go in that direction. I think Lehman mentioned at, at, at one point in time. But, but again, we do lots of dangerous things every day and nothing bad happens. And that doesn't make it any less safe. It just means that we have to do things consciously and, and as safe as well, safe, safely. And, don't take shortcuts. 'cause We want all of you to be around next year too.
Scott (01:05:09):
Yeah, great point, Bonnie. Yeah. Yeah. Lehman my entire career, you've been the silage guru. You're now retired. I'm kind of curious, have you passed a baton to anyone?
Limin (01:05:22):
No, not really.
Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
Okay. Wow.
Limin (01:06:04):
So it's gonna be in the US. Yeah. So you don't have to
Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
Yeah, everybody
Limin (01:06:08):
In the US won't have to travel abroad. So put Mark that on your calendar. And there actually is an ISC 2025 website that is up and running, and there's a barcode that you can take a picture of and get put on the email list to get updates on the conference. So that's coming up really soon. It's sooner than, you know, than you know.
Scott (01:06:36):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for that plug. And also wanted to tell you that we've got a, an awful lot of young people listen to the podcast, a lot of students, so I wanted to tell them there is, there's a, there's a gap there, there's an opportunity if you wanna be the next Dr. Kung there's an opportunity for you Lehman as our primary guest. Is there any, any final key takeaway messages you'd like to leave for our audience?
Limin (01:07:00):
You know, I, I guess to me one of the most important things is not specific in terms of, you know, pack do this packing and density in Chopin. It's more global. And that is to, you know, make use of the resources that are out there. Like this podcast like Alchem, like Bonnie Kalki, like Clay, the nutritionists. We're all here to help you and you know, we're, you know, useless. Please, if you have questions you need help, we are here to help you for sure.
Scott (01:07:37):
Yeah. Thank you for that. Lehman. well said Lehman, Bonnie Clay, thank you guys for joining us tonight. This has been an inspiring conversation. I've appreciated it. To our loyal listeners, thank you very much for joining us once again. We always enjoy having you here. We'd love
Speaker 4 (01:07:54):
To hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to anh.marketing at balchem.com with any suggestions, we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five star rating on your way out. You can request your Real Science Exchange t-shirt in just a few easy steps, just like or subscribe to the Real Science Exchange. And send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to a h.marketing at bal chem.com. Balchems real science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month. Monogastric focused topics on the second Tuesday of each month, and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment. Visit balchem.com/realscience to see the latest schedule and to register for upcoming webinars.