Forage harvester
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A Forage Harvester (also known as a Silage Harvester) is a farm implement that creates silage. Silage is grass or corn that has been chopped into small pieces, and compacted together in a storage silo to provide feed for cattle. Haylage is the a similar process but using grass which has dried.
Forage harvesters can be implements attached to a tractor, or they can be self-propelled units. In either configuration, they have a blower that blows the silage out a chute at the rear of the harvester into a wagon that is connected to the harvester. In either case, once a wagon is filled up, the wagon can be detached and taken back to a silo for unloading, and another wagon can be attached. Because corn, grass and hay require different types of cutting equipment, there are different heads for each type of silage, and these heads can be connected and disconnected from the harvester.
The modern way of silage making is with a self-propelled machine with a tractor or lorry running along with the forager. Today's machines can cut up to 1200 tons of silage per day. Silage made from grass, canola, oats or wheat are chopped in pieces 6 to 30 millimeters and treated with a special bacteria to speed up the fermentation process. When silage is made of corn or sorghum additional bacteria is not necessary because of the high sugar level in the plant.
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