Today after we went to the Pioneer Headquarters we went to the Pioneer Livestock Nutrition Center, which is just outside Johnson Iowa. There they do research on inoculants and the digestibility of Pioneer grain and forages in swine, lambs and cattle.
They seal forages in vaccum sealed packs, as well as in packed PVC tubes and ferment them to test different Pioneer inoculants and forages. They also put the haylage in a device made from syrofoam and put them in a cooler and measure the gases coming off of the haylage at different temperatures. They have found that when they use inoculants with corn silage, it works well with most varieties of corn, but for haylage, some inoculants only work on certain varieties.
With their feeding trials, they have sealed totes of feed, and use one tote of feed per day. The beef feeding trials are from 56 to 84 days. The totes are treated with different inoculants so they can see how the animals react to how the hayage ferments. They also use fistulated steers to test digestibility. Small nylon bags with feed samples are put in the animals stomach for 48 hours.
Andrew Warboys
