- Quality cereal for intensive livestock feeding
- High yielding from spring or autumn sowing
- Excellent disease resistance
Monstress Triticale is a high yielding, disease resistant
forage triticale that can be autumn to spring sown as it does
not require vernalisation.
Whole Crop Silage
MONSTRESS has attributes making it ideally suited to whole crop
cereal silage production in most areas of southern Australia. The
crop should be allowed to develop until the milky to soft dough
stage of maturity before harvesting for silage. This will maximize
the harvest of energy per hectare from the crop, as opposed to
traditional silage harvested at nil to early head emergence.
Harvesting
Harvesting of MONSTRESS crops for silage at the late milky
dough stage (i.e. consistency of soft putty) provides a good
combination of yield and feed quality for ruminants. Silage
should be made when whole plant dry matter ranges between 35
and 40%, the crop should be green but beginning to ‘brown off’.
MONSTRESS Triticale silage can be direct harvested, finely
chopped with no wilting and stored in a well consolidated sealed
pit.
Nutritive Value
Whole crop MONSTRESS cereal silage is highly valued by dairy,
sheep and beef farmers because of the high levels of
carbohydrates - starch and fermentable fibre, and relatively low
levels of protein.
Typically, MONSTRESS dry matter produces 9% to 14% protein.
Starch levels range from 15% to 30% of dry matter, again
balancing grass which generally contains little starch. Actual
levels of starch will depend on how much grain is in the silage
and the timing of harvest.
MONSTRESS also provides fermentable fibre, producing energy
that is released more slowly and resulting in more efficient rumen
activity. High levels of fermentable carbohydrate also allow the
animal to gain condition faster, an advantage for dairy cows at
the end of lactation.
Metabolisable energy (ME) values for MONSTRESS usually range
from 9.0 to 10.5 megajoules. The important factor is that
MONSTRESS combines a cost effective source of starch (grain)
and fermentable fibre (straw and leaf) when harvested at 35-40%
dry matter.
Management
The value of MONSTRESS whole crop silage to the animal lies in
the combination of the starch (grain) and fermentable fibre (straw
and leaf) when harvested at 33 - 35% dry matter. This is the ideal
stage for maximising nutritive value of the crop, but does mean
a reduction in final dry matter yield of the crop (10-20%
reduction in yield potential).
Monstress silage triticale at Echuca, Victoria
Allowing a crop to go to 50% or more dry matter % will increase
your total crop yield but will reduce the feed value of the silage
for animals because:
- more mature crops tend to drop more grain during
harvest (less grain and starch means lower feed value)
- the straw becomes more lignified so is less well
digested by the animal
- a more mature crop doesn’t compact as well in the
stack so silage pH isn’t as low and is more likely to spoil
- a later harvest means less sugars in the plant: Lower
feed value
- a late harvested crop will have a lower ME value
If you are being paid on a MJ ME basis for your crop, it will be
important to cut at the right dry matter percent.
Monitor crops closely around 30% DM, as the drying rate of the
crop may be as high as 2 - 2.5% DM each day and the crop
harvesting window can become quite narrow.
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