Silage is an essential feed for livestock-based agriculture. Made from legumes such as alfalfa, corn/maize, sorghum or other cereal crops, silage is fermented, high-moisture fodder that is fed to cattle and sheep.
Through a process called "ensiling," the entire green plants are chopped and then either placed in an upright silo, piled in a large cement bunker typically covered with plastic, or placed in large plastic tubes. Silage undergoes anaerobic fermentation, which starts about 48 hours after it is stored. In the past, the fermentation was conducted by microorganisms contained on the crop before chopping, but, today, silage often is inoculated with specific microorganisms to speed fermentation or improve the resulting silage.
Silage inoculants typically contain one or more strains of lactic acid bacteria, and are selected specifically to perform on the crop being harvested. Pioneer's silage inoculants provide many benefits including base fermentation for dry matter recovery, aerobic stability for improved bunk life and enhanced fiber digestibility which enables higher silage inclusion rates in the ration and improved forage energy density.
Pioneer's investment in inoculants began in 1977 with the acquisition of Nulabs based on Portland, OR. The company was originally purchased to provide Pioneer with a biological seed treatment. Nulabs was also working with animal and plant inoculant products. Because of this work, Pioneer was able to introduce Sila-Bac® brand inoculant 1177 and Probios® brand animal inoculants. These products launched Pioneer's silage inoculant business and cemented our work to enhance animal agriculture with Pioneer products.
Throughout the 1980s research efforts expanded and focused research on crop specific bacterial strains led to the release of several new products in the early 1990s. In 1994, Pioneer opened a Livestock Nutrition Center, which provides the ability to conduct on-farm feeding studies with products before commercial release.
A breakthrough inoculant technology was released by Pioneer in 2001 which provided producers with a way to enhance bunk life of silage through improved aerobic stability. At the same time, the business began to move away from granular product formulations to water soluble formulations. Pioneer released a new inoculant applicator, the Appli-Pro® SLV, which provides a low-volume liquid application system to keep pace with the rapidly increasing capacity of forage choppers.
By 2007 another new revolution in inoculant technology had been developed and released by Pioneer. The Pioneer Fiber Technology platform provides enhanced fiber digestibility to dairy producers. By improving the fiber digestibility of silage, producers get more feed value from the silage which in turn allows them to feed more silage and reduce other more costly sources of energy in the ration. Pioneer continues to expand this platform by releasing this technology for other silage crops and for biogas producers.
