Truro based SC Nutrition Ltd provides cattle nutrition and feed advice to a cohort of Dairy and Beef farms. Steve Chapman has over 25 years’ experience in the nutrition industry, and at a recent nutrition conference in the USA one of the emergent key issues was maximising the cow’s ability to benefit from Acidified Detergent Fibre Protein (ADICP) in forage.
Steve has observed a big difference in the quality of silage being produced across Cornwall, and this is partly attributable to a variance in silage making practices, such as being left too long in the field or from the presence of air pockets in the silage clamp. Steve has liaised with a laboratory in the USA that has developed techniques in silage testing. Steve has identified one that is specifically useful to this side of the Atlantic, and this is the first time this will be used in the United Kingdom.
Funded in part through the Agri-tech Cornwall Innovation Grant Scheme, SC Nutrition Ltd., are carrying out a pilot project with 15 Cornish farmers using innovative technology which does not require a laboratory, but can be used in the field. The aim of the pilot is to analyse the levels of ADICP protein in grass silage and establish whether management practices have affected the availability of the forage protein.
Recordings of the silage will be taken just after cutting, again as the silage enters the clamp, and again 8 weeks after ensiling.
