# Sunflower Baleage



## slvr98svt (Jan 18, 2011)

Possible? Just tossing idea's around for next year when I am working on some fields. My plan was to put them into teff or pearl millet for the summer. Make some baleage then put back into grass hay. However doing some reading on protein levels and such with sunflowers as silage close to corn silage would it be possible to just mow it, bale and wrap? Thought I might give it a try on a smaller field close to a road for aesthetics!

-Matt


----------



## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Does your baler have a cutter? If not, I'd stick with a finer stemmed crop.


----------



## lidaacres (Oct 11, 2014)

I agree with 8350, I think the stalks would be the limiting factor. I could see chopping it like corn, but I haven't heard of anyone making corn baleage and I would guess it would be much the same with flowers. We did some forage peas and oats this year to replace some froze out hay, and I would think you would like the results from something like that better. That would maybe not get the aesthetics your looking for ; although I got allot of people stop me in town wondering what we had planted.


----------



## slvr98svt (Jan 18, 2011)

How did the peas turn out? That was baleage? I have been eyeballing doing some of that as well.

The sunflowers were just an idea! Thought it would be neat. But no I just have an old krone regular baler. The plans are to upgrade to a newer one with cutter in 2 years. Maybe try it then


----------



## lidaacres (Oct 11, 2014)

Yes the Peas and Oats was baleage. It worked out pretty well; we did 33 acres and got 339 3x3x5.5 big squares, and they tested 17% protein and good adf & ndf #'s. We cut it when the peas started flowering That was also under seeded with alfalfa, and we will be cutting that today. We also did 11 acres in some wet ground that I was able to get into and spin on with a fertilizer spreader in early April, and cut that when the oats headed out. That made 110 4x5 rounds, and some of it drown out. We have not taken a sample of that but I imagine it will be good bred heifer/ beef cow hay. Some things we are/have learned about it.....we didn't spray it, it seemed to choke out pretty much all the weeds......it is hard to dry/ wetter than it feels. Our conditioner was cracking the pea stems about every 3 inches and laid the windrows a little less than 4 ft wide behind a 10ft diskbine and it laid for 4 days of slightly below avg drying days for around here, and when we baled it I would of guessed it was about 45% moisture and it tested 62%. My guess is there was allot of stem moisture even though the conditioner did it's job. Also, get it wrapped within 6-8 hrs of baling. We have baled in the evening and wrapped first thing in the AM with alfalfa, and I did this with the peas to get a jump start on the next day and the bales got out of shape. We started to have this problem the next day as the haulers/wrapper couldn't keep up to the baler. Our animals love it, and because of our current situation feeding some of it to our dairy cows and sort of to my surprise doing quite well on it.


----------



## MDill (Feb 8, 2015)

I've been toying with the idea of trying to figure out how to make corn balage. Haven't quite figured out if I should just try it next year on a small plot. The part that would interest me about it is resale/delivery. It would be easy to sell round bale corn silage packages around here, easier to store too. When I lived in Switzerland there were a lot of wrapped bales of corn silage but they use rebalers over there. I think I saw one here either in a magazine or at Empire Farm days a few years ago. So that is a totally seperate piece of equipment, you would chop normally into a bunk and then load the stationary rebaler to make the silage bales. 
I've been wondering if I could use something like a flail chopper or flail mower to put the stalks into a small enough length to make decent silage but also pick up with the narrow pickup on our KR125s. I don't doubt it is possible with the Krone chain and slat, there are no belts to flip or feed in between, it's just getting it chopped into a windrow to pick up. 
Not trying to get onto a tangent but thought I'd mention I was thinking the same thing just with corn instead of sunflowers. 
My first thought when I read this was why not barley? It is the closest energy feed to corn and would be a lot easier to keep weeds out of, make better looking bales and you could just treat it like a grass crop before baling, same mower etc. 
We grow small pieces of oats fairly often and I've always wanted to try barley, I've just heard it's hard to grow around here. 
Also I don't think having a crop cutter on a baler would help in a crop like sunflowers, I think you would have to crawl to keep them from plugging and even still the stalks would be too thick. You'd have to run 1/4 of the knives out to keep from plugging but then your chop length would be too long for the cows. 
I think an open throat non belt baler would be perfect for something like that.


----------



## slvr98svt (Jan 18, 2011)

Lida, so the 33 acres you did was a mix of oats and peas planted together or were they seperye fields? I like the percentage values, might be something I need to look more into.

Mdill where are you from? I'm on my phone so can't see but did you make it up to EFD's this year? I picked up an Omni 5 while I was there for a pretty darn good price. The barley is also an interesting thought that hadn't run through my mind. Basically what I am looking for is hat you said. Treat it like a grass crop. I want to plant it in the spring for a quick crop later in the summer to wrap and then plant a permanent hay crop that fall.


----------



## lidaacres (Oct 11, 2014)

All of it was peas and oats and was under seeded with alfalfa or grass. We got the seed at the local coop and it was a blend they bought from a seed supplier. We had one field of 33 acres and 2 small fields that totaled 11 acres so 44 total.


----------



## MDill (Feb 8, 2015)

slvr98svt said:


> Mdill where are you from? I'm on my phone so can't see but did you make it up to EFD's this year? I picked up an Omni 5 while I was there for a pretty darn good price. The barley is also an interesting thought that hadn't run through my mind. Basically what I am looking for is hat you said. Treat it like a grass crop. I want to plant it in the spring for a quick crop later in the summer to wrap and then plant a permanent hay crop that fall.


I'm in southern New Hampshire not too far from the ocean. I didn't make it out to EFD this year, I'm getting married next weekend so preparing for that, haying on my own and working for a farm tied up those 3 days. Hopefully next year, the one time I've been I wish I had given myself 2 days to walk around rather than one. 
I've always been interested in growing barley for silage but everyone says you can't grow it around here because of our crappy soil. Acidic and full of rocks (The Granite State). One of the reasons I've wanted to give it a shot is because I could use all the same equipment I'm using now, and have a relatively high energy feed for when cows calve in in the spring. I'd grow corn but storage is a big hinderance, yuppies who think corn is awful but have money to buy meat is another driver.. 
I bought an old International 510 drill a couple years ago hoping to put in more oats or start experimenting with barley but just haven't got around to it yet. 
The reason I was thinking of corn now was more of a marketing reason than for feeding my own cows. People who are looking to buy feed for show cows or a small herd already know what corn silage is but don't need a whole dump truck load. Also I might have a hard time selling them on barley as opposed to corn.

All of that said, a mix of barley and peas or beans may be the perfect mix. A high energy feed mixed in with a high protein feed. You could just do like lidaacres does and just seed in grass with the grain.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I've actually done stalk balage, kinda.

Come fall we'll pick some corn early while the stalks and leaves still have some green left in em, we disconnect the spreader on the back of the combine and leave all the fodder in a row, then follow the combine with a 7 foot bush to shred the stalks then bale and wrap. The stuff coming out later smells just like corn silage however still takes a lot of processing in the vertical TMR to get the cows to eat all of it.


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)

slvr98svt said:


> Possible? Just tossing idea's around for next year when I am working on some fields. My plan was to put them into teff or pearl millet for the summer. Make some baleage then put back into grass hay. However doing some reading on protein levels and such with sunflowers as silage close to corn silage would it be possible to just mow it, bale and wrap? Thought I might give it a try on a smaller field close to a road for aesthetics!
> 
> -Matt


I know this conversation is a bit dated, but in a month I will be chopping sunflowers with an old fox chopper, dumping the silage on some millfelt and then going over the pile with our Mchale round baler. There are videos on YouTube with them doing this with corn silage, I can’t imagine it not working with sunflowers. I will then be wrapping them and selling them.


----------



## Markpnw (Dec 27, 2019)

I was thinking of doing the same sunflower baleage after I cut winter rye but not sure how it’ll work. I’ve seen a video of Corn baleage being done but not sure where I saw it. I’m not sure if the baler has to be corn stalk ready.


----------



## Markpnw (Dec 27, 2019)

I found the video


----------



## Markpnw (Dec 27, 2019)

Here’s another one


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)

Markpnw said:


> Here’s another one


This is cool, the only difference is I will be chopping them into smaller bits first, when I do harvest I’ll try and get some photos up here


----------



## Hay diddle diddle (Nov 17, 2017)

You can pretty much bale anything...just sayin.

That isn't really the point though is it..... Its how it comes out when you go to feed it. Will it be full of mold due to stalk size. Will stock even look at it? Will it be acidic. Etc etc. Dried out and done for hay at least takes the mold factor out of the equation. 
Prior to the millennium drought down here hardly anyone had contemplated canola (rape) for either. I have seen some horrid silage made from it. But I have seen and made some beautiful hay that tested well. Only thing with feeding it to stock is the sharp stems. Best practice is in a mixer wagon and add a few hundred liters of water to it as its chopping. Aids in leaf and flower retention and softens the stems.
So. Biggest thing is think of the end use. Not necessarily whether you can just get string/net/plastic around it.


----------



## Markpnw (Dec 27, 2019)

I’m thinking of planting sunflowers at 12in spacing that way the stalks will be thinner making it easier for the baler. Assuming all the air is out of the bale after it’s wrapped there should be little to zero mold. I’ll try and reach out to that guy that did corn and see what he says.


----------



## Markpnw (Dec 27, 2019)

Cipriano88 said:


> This is cool, the only difference is I will be chopping them into smaller bits first, when I do harvest I’ll try and get some photos up here


Yes photos would be great


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)

Hay diddle diddle said:


> You can pretty much bale anything...just sayin.
> 
> That isn't really the point though is it..... Its how it comes out when you go to feed it. Will it be full of mold due to stalk size. Will stock even look at it? Will it be acidic. Etc etc. Dried out and done for hay at least takes the mold factor out of the equation.
> Prior to the millennium drought down here hardly anyone had contemplated canola (rape) for either. I have seen some horrid silage made from it. But I have seen and made some beautiful hay that tested well. Only thing with feeding it to stock is the sharp stems. Best practice is in a mixer wagon and add a few hundred liters of water to it as its chopping. Aids in leaf and flower retention and softens the stems.
> So. Biggest thing is think of the end use. Not necessarily whether you can just get string/net/plastic around it.


These are good points, sunflowers I have chopped before, you would not believe how soft and almost foamy feeling the stalk is, it packs better than corn silage and as long as it is free of oxygen, no mold comes in, also it smells great, as for the acid levels I don’t know, but have to say it really balances itself out, they really are wonders of nature


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)

Markpnw said:


> Yes photos would be great


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)

Here’s a bale


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)




----------



## Markpnw (Dec 27, 2019)

Cipriano88 said:


> View attachment 91097


How did it turn out feed quality? Any mold in the inside?


----------



## Cipriano88 (Aug 15, 2021)

Markpnw said:


> How did it turn out feed quality? Any mold in the inside?


I only just baked them So I will open one up eventually and let you guys know, But I gotta say, they smell great, However I was forced to bale a bit early and they are very wet


----------



## jasonbaf (5 mo ago)

Hay diddle diddle said:


> You can pretty much bale anything...just sayin.
> 
> That isn't really the point though is it..... Its how it comes out when you go to feed it. Will it be full of mold due to stalk size. Will stock even look at it? Will it be acidic. Etc etc. Dried out and done for hay at least takes the mold factor out of the equation.
> Prior to the millennium drought down here hardly anyone had contemplated canola (rape) for either. I have seen some horrid silage made from it. But I have seen and made some beautiful hay that tested well. Only thing with feeding it to stock is the sharp stems. Best practice is in a mixer wagon and add a few hundred liters of water to it as its chopping. Aids in leaf and flower retention and softens the stems.
> So. Biggest thing is think of the end use. Not necessarily whether you can just get string/net/plastic around it.


Wouldn't you be able to cut them sooner before the stalks get too thick? Was thinking of planting sunflowers at 12in spacing with alfalfa and then cutting and baling it, but haven't found much of people cutting the flowers early


----------



## jasonbaf (5 mo ago)

jasonbaf said:


> Wouldn't you be able to cut them sooner before the stalks get too thick? Was thinking of planting sunflowers at 12in spacing with alfalfa and then cutting and baling it, but haven't found much of people cutting the flowers early


The alfalfa would be at 8in spacing


----------

