Across the green and verdant land of Devon – arguably the best grass-growing county of England – the trusty SilaPactor, Kelvin Cave’s silage compactor, is truly having its moment. So much so, that Matthew Alford – agronomist by day and owner of a newly fledged hire company in his spare time – has bought six of these mighty machines in under two years.

This year’s wet and gloomy summer has made it one of the most challenging ever to make good quality silage. And the difficulties look set to continue into the maize harvest – so what can farmers do to maximise their forage quality?

Home-grown spring beans have cut the cost of the beef ration on a Northumberland farm by halving the use of straw and cutting out feed-grade urea.

William Maughan has made a saving of well over £130 per tonne by switching from bought-in to home-grown protein and now says Propcorn NC-treated beans will remain a mainstay of his beef ration.

Cumbrian beef, sheep and arable producer, James Marshall, entered the world of growing and feeding beans with some trepidation. A lack of information on how to preserve and store the crop combined with little industry advice on how to incorporate beans into a ration could easily have put him off the idea altogether.

We keep hearing in the farming press about multi-cut and now multi-species swards. Well, these two things are completely different! However, to be successful with multi-species swards a multi-cut approach is the way to go!!

In recent years, due to price volatility and increasing focus on environmental factors, many of our customers have turned to us to help them process and preserve home-grown or locally-sourced proteins in order to become more self-sufficient, try to increase their profitability and reduce their carbon footprint.