IT'S been another unsettled week with some rain, chilly breezes but also periods of warm sunshine and a humid feel to the air.

However, we were able to complete first cut silage. The mowing of 120 acres of grass took almost two days, with all the grass cut at the beginning of the week.

Then it was time for the contractors to move in to begin ensiling the crop. When cut the grass had been spread to enable it to wilt before it was picked up.

If the crop contained too much water when brought into the silage clamp it would produce a large amount of effluent, lose valuable nutrients and make it difficult to get the right sort of fermentation.

First of all, using a large rake, the grass was rowed up ready for the forage harvester to pick up and chop. As the grass was gathered from the field some extra bacteria were added. These were a strain of Lactobacillus planatarum, which help the lactobacilli already present in the crop to produce a more a rapid fall of pH to 4, at which point the fermentation will stop.

This rapid reduction in pH will reduce the amount of effluent produced and give silage with high digestibility. Tractors pulling high-sided trailers took the grass back to the silage clamp, where it was tipped before being built into a wedge using a buck-rake, then rolled to expel as much air as possible.

Good fermentation only takes place in anaerobic conditions, which is why to make good palatable silage the ensiled grass must be wrapped in a plastic sheet and weighed down with bales of straw or tyres as quickly as possible.

On Chuggaton Farm in North Devon, Steve and Steve have been ensiling their first cut of grass. However, it got off to a slow start, when the forage harvester decided to stop working half an hour after it arrived in the first field. There was then a race against time as the forecast was for some rain later in the day, with more arriving overnight.

Fortunately, a new part for the forage harvester was soon found and put into place, so gathering the grass crop began once again. There was a storm in the afternoon, but the sun soon came out again accompanied by a good breeze, so the grass did not become too wet. There was a sigh of relief late that evening when the 87 acres of cut grass was all in the clamp.

Once first cut silage making had been completed on Manor Farm, we were able to start spreading slurry liquor from our rather full slurry store, onto some of the mowed fields. The remainder of the mowed area was given an application of nitrogen fertiliser. The amounts of slurry and fertiliser used on each field have to be recorded and the records be available for inspection, so we occasionally have slurry samples analysed to keep a check on how much nitrogen we are adding to each field.

Whilst on the subject of slurry, I arrived home after a day at Roves Farm to find a pile of wet, smelly clothes outside the back door. I later found out that when Richard had taken over slurry spreading whilst James had his breakfast, he didn't close a valve properly and was sprayed with slurry!

At the end of the week Ian and Nathan bolused our eight-month-old heifer calves prior to turning them out, which this year has been delayed due to the unpredictable weather. The boluses are administered orally and will give the calves protection from a variety of intestinal worms over the grazing season. All we can do now is wait for a favourable weather forecast.