There has been considerable research into individual components of harvesting systems in terms of their effects on nutritive value and animal performance. However few studies have examined total harvesting systems, involving in-field and in-silo losses, nutritive value of the product and the effects on animal output per hectare. The present study was set up to examine these effects.

Four systems of harvesting grass for silage were compared over each of 3 harvests during 1984. The systems were: single chop flail harvester direct cutting (SCD); double chop flail harvester direct cutting (DCD); mown with a rotary mower and picked up with a precision chop harvester either immediately (PCD) or after wilting until the dry matter concentration had increased by approximately 100 g kg-1 (PCW). The field wilting periods for PCW were 48, 48 and 24 hrs for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd harvests respectively.