All in on silage?

[redglasses]

I was wondering if anyone here does silage for money? I have been thinking about going all out on corn silage, (big x 580, purchasing the biogas) it’s been forever since I’ve done corn silage for profit I was wondering if it’s worth it.

[FarmDemAcres]

Cutting corn for chaff is still one of the most profitable crops per hectare, but comes at the cost of a large investment in equipment and player time that can't be readily automated. The biogas plant can only process about 864,000 liters of chaff per day, which is about the yield of 6 fully fertilized Ha (14+ acres). This will involve at least a couple hours of harvest/transport time even if the field is located relatively close to the plant, plus the time required to compact chaff and ferment. The delivery from bunker to biogas processing can be somewhat automated through the use of conveyor belts, but must be monitored from time to time to ensure the belts have not completely emptied the 10m area directly in front of them and so must be repositioned.

Finally digestate is free fertilizer, but cannot be automatically reloaded by the helper, requiring the player to make the trip to the plant to refill the slurry tank.

All in all another fun change of pace, I think a pretty well balanced change of pace for the middle to late stages of a map.

[redglasses]

Wow that was a good, detailed break down, I guess it is still profitable, maybe I’ll just go for the old mod forage harvester. Only a 3m head tho. I’ll also have to buy a skid steer.

[Illinois Farmer]

You can also sell the digest with the slurry trader. It isn't much usually, but better than nothing.

[SJ_Sathanas]

I use to keep the BGA at Ravenport constantly topped up and would usually get about £100,000 a day. That was just using grass, the grass around fields and land flipping.
I had 10 of the ITRunner grain bins full of either grass waiting for a silo or silage waiting to be processed. Very occasionally the barn price would be better than the BGA so I'd truck it over in bulk.
Incidentally, I got caught in a John Deere convoy yesterday morning. Must have been at least 10 tractors & trailers following a forage harvester.

[CMDRTAKEDOWN]

Making silage on R.D.C using Alfalfa.Put over 300k worth into the silo, compact it, cover it, and open it up and have over 2 mill. Harvest the seeds and picked up the swath.
Done this in 2 silo's so I'm now thinking of taking it to the factory to sell it. Was planing on having it for the cow's but I wasn't expecting on getting this much.

[Ado239]

I bale grass for silage as i never really liked doing bunkers/pits. Easy money though

[george.earlslight]

The only problem is that you probably can't do this on start from scratch since you can't take such a big loan.
Other modes would be OK I guess.

[girlie100]

I don't like doing pits but like doing wrapped grass, I'm on Oakfield and making a killing selling silage to the BGA

[redglasses]

^^I know a lot of people stopped doing pits when 17 released because you actually had to use a leveler, in 15 it was much simpler. TBH I loved doing pits in 17, is it just me or does bailing seem to take longer in terms of the actual harvesting process?

[Ado239]

^^I know a lot of people stopped doing pits when 17 released because you actually had to use a leveler, in 15 it was much simpler. TBH I loved doing pits in 17, is it just me or does bailing seem to take longer in terms of the actual harvesting process?

Thats exactly why i stopped. I just can't get the hang of the leveller and i keep getting stuck. Baling might takea little longer but its easier.

[dapals51]

Do you really need a leveler? (Or are you meaning the front blade as a leveler?) I just push it up and pack it it's fairly smooth

[chedly_farms]

I was wondering if anyone here does silage for money? I have been thinking about going all out on corn silage, (big x 580, purchasing the biogas) it’s been forever since I’ve done corn silage for profit I was wondering if it’s worth it.

It's all in what you like doing, I suppose. I personally like doing silage for my dairy cows and been thinking of doing some for Biogas money for a little extra income.

[Crazof]

My Marwell map has had the BGA running 24/7 starting on day two of that save game, at the beginning I was doing wrapped grass bales, then switched to loose grass. occasionally I do a field of corn to give my stock levels a boost. I put two bunkers in at the bga and use the one at the main farm.

I also started a Lipinki start from scratch on hard. I bought two of the grass fields near the sheep farm and started doing wrapped grass bales. I was able to get the two fields, a tractor, mowers, kuhn baler/wrapper and autoloading trailer with the starting money. Since starting I have grown to have 7 fields, another tractor and have started adding other equipment with the goal of switching away from silage bales over to grains.

[cwattyeso]

My business model in Fs19 is now to make as much silage as possible, so grass, straw and chaff going into a Fermenting Machine to make Silage, which is then sold to the BGA for a nice amount of money. I then have a Fertiliser Production Machine which takes that lovely Digestate from the BGA and turns it into Fertiliser that I can then use to refill all my machines at the farm, meaning no more spending money on fertliser, also I produce that much fertiliser from the Silage to Digestate to Fertiliser process, I can actually sell off hundreds of thousands of fertiliser at a time which makes millions in cash. So for me on my farms Fertiliser is our most profitable crop, export and sale. Everything we plant and grow is geared up for the production of fertiliser.