Dry Matter Matters

Alright folks. Today's lesson will be on Dry Matter. Just remember that I am no expert. In fact, the experts wouldn't even let me sit at the same lunch table. (Actually, they would because they are nice fellas like that.) Anyway, if you are wanting an accurate "how to" or scientific stuff, you're better off with Google finding you some guy with PhD or other important letters after their name.

Let's get to it then...
Corn silage is basically shredded up corn crop that is fermented. The corn crop has moisture in it. Now like I said before too little and too much water in the silage is not a good thing. Dry matter samples are run to find out how much of the corn vs. water is coming in from the fields.
Here's what I do:

The trucks come in... I weigh them in and out. When a truck comes in from a new field or when has been about 5 trucks since I last got a sample I have to do a dry matter test.

I go to the pit where the silage mountains are built to collect my samples.

There I am... waiting to collect a sample. Thank you for the picture Curtis!  

This is what the silage sample looks like in its bag. These are actually gloves that we rig to be our bags. 

This is the scale and bucket used in the testing. It is finicky. The bucket has to be at 0% without anything in it.

Fill her up. See the flecks of yellow corn and green pieces? This is how you know it is a good batch. 

Fill it until it is at the 100%. 

On the cooker it goes. This gadget evaporates the water thus drying out the silage.

As you can see it cooks for thirty minutes. 

When it's done, it looks like this... crunchier. Like potpourri.

Back on the scale it goes and you read the red numbers. Earlier today our dry matter numbers were 38/37. In the evening it jumped to 42. Dry stuff. The higher the red number the drier it is... a 25 is a dripping wet silage and that is no good. Yesterday, we got shut down early because it was a 27. The rain does that to the stuff. 

When I get a new field I, also, get to make one of these babies. A silage bomb as Curtis calls them. They get sent off to a lab for some real science-y tests. 

I record all of this data into my spreadsheet and it helps save the world. Haha. Not quite but I'm sure my employer appreciates my diligence. That is the question I answer constantly throughout the day- "What's the dry matter?" So I'm always ready! 

And hey! Fun info. that hopefully you gathered from your read... the trucks with lower dry matter numbers weigh more than the trucks with high dry matter numbers. Because water weighs more than the corn silage! Or something like that...