Silage

I was in the capital for a couple days for the most recent SPA (Small Project Assistance) Committee's meeting. I thought I'd share one of the better projects that was submitted to the Committee so you can get a sense of some of the good works PCVs are doing. This project involves dairy cows. Many Moldovans own 1-2 cows which they keep in a small shed behind their house. The cow is sometimes allowed to graze during the summer and during the winter is fed dried corn stalks - neither or which contain many nutrients. As a consequence, cows in Moldova daily produce an average of 8 liters of milk. Compare this to an average of 40 liters a day in America, where a dairy cow is usually killed if it produces anything less than 20 liters a day.

Why this vast discrepancy? In larger part it has to do with feed. As I learned from one PCV's proposal, the poor nutrients and low quantity of food given to cows results in drastically smaller yields. For many, growing higher quality feed is simply not possible because economies of scale prevent the owner of a single cow from producing what's necessary. But, should several farmers join together in a cooperative, the project should work.

Here's an explanation of just what exactly will be fed to the cows starting in a few months, taken directly from one PCVs SPA application:

This ration system is composed of the following crops: Grass Silage, Corn Silage, Alfalfa Hay, Corn grain, Soy grain, oats and premix. What is silage? Silage is made using a tractor and a machine that chops up either the corn or grass into little pieces about 2 inches long. The machine then blows the bits of grass or corn into a trailer. The trailer is then hauled to a large pit made of either concrete or dug into the ground where it is dumped. At this stage it is possible to add salt, or microbes to help preserve it. Another tractor then drives over the grass or corn, packing it down and pressing all the air out. Then you cover the pile with a cellophane cover to prevent rain from seeping in. You let the pile sit for at least two weeks and it ferments a little. The lack of air prevents it from fermenting too much and stops it from rotting. It will then keep for up to a year, maintaining the nutrient value of the corn or grass as if it were fed fresh to the cows. An additional benefit to feeding silage is that since it is chopped up (especially in the case of corn), cows cannot distinguish between the parts of the plant they like and the parts that are good for them, so they will eat all of it. This means no burning dry corn stocks year round. Due to the fact that you want to minimize the exposure of the grass or corn to the air and elements, it works best if it is done in a big pile, which is why in our program it will be necessary to create the silage communally.

The other elements in the ration are fairly self explanatory. Alfalfa is similar to grass but contains many more nutrients. Corn, Soy and Oats are all grains that are grown here and in the states and harvested dry (as opposed to silage which is harvested with moisture still in the plant). Premix is a something you buy from farm stores. It is a combination of essential vitamins and minerals that aren’t readily available in plants.

Each of these crops has a specific nutritional value. The first and most important category is green matter. This category includes grass silage, corn silage and hay. Grass silage is good because it contains a high level of protein, which everyone knows is critical to building cells. Corn silage is the base of the ration. Corn silage contains a high level of calories, protein and fiber (critical to digestive systems). It also contains a small amount of calcium and other necessary minerals. Though the same energy can be obtained from grains, silage is much cheaper to produce and contains the added benefits of protein, calcium and fiber. Alfalfa hay occupies another important position, it provides a great deal of protein, calcium, fiber and carotene. These three crops; corn silage, grass silage and hay make up the three main pillars of the well balanced dairy ration. The second category is dry feed, or grains. The grains add more raw energy and protein but they cannot be the only feed for cows because they contain a lower quality protein than green matter and they don’t contain enough amino acid which is necessary for cows to digest the grains. Additionally, they don’t contain carotene, vitamins D or C, and contain very little calcium and other microelements. There are three types of grains; grains that are rich in glucose, grains that are rich in protein, and grains that are rich in fat. We have chosen one of each of the following types and adjusted their proportion in the ration to optimize their effect. Oats are rich in protein, but since our cows will get a great deal of protein from grass silage we will feed only 35% oats out of all grains fed. Corn is rich in sugar and plays an important role, thus we will feed 50% corn grain. Soy is rich in fat, also important, but not as critical, so we will feed only 14% of this. The last type of feed is premix; premix contains the rest of the minerals not contained in the previous feed types (kind of like a multivitamin): calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, chlorine, sulfur, potassium, zinc, iodine, cobalt and iron. Premix only needs to be fed at 5% of the total ration but its use alone can increase production 10 to 15 percent.