Hi. I have a friend that is trying corn silage in Haiti. He needs seed for the best corn for silage in Haiti. He also needs info on small silage choppers. Thanks.
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Hey Mike,
The “Tex-Cuban” and “Cubano-Argentino” varieties in our seed bank are both forage/silage varieties and would be worth a try.
There are small choppers either hand or engine/motor operated. They are generally called chaff cutters.
See, for example:
Hi Mike,
We use a brush chipper that is attached to a two-wheeled tractor. It is the best option we have found so far as we don’t have access to smaller-scale choppers around here. I don’t have any personal experience with the hand chopper Robert posted, but I have heard of people using them successfully; it was something that was used for many years on small farms around the U.S. way back when.
Other ways I’ve seen it done:
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chop it by hand with machetes (very difficult to get the pieces small enough, not to mention a TON of work)
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use a simple machete-type chopper that you can build yourself (these tend to only chop the larger stalk, not the leaf blades)
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use a yard debris chipper/shredder (also does not chop uniformly, leaving larger sections of the leaves intact).
Depending on the scale, investing in a small forage chopper may be worth it. I’m not sure about in Haiti, but I have found them in many other parts of the developing world. A key feature I would look for is feeding rollers. This should help with size uniformity.
Also, check out this article. It summarizes the process of making silage in Columbia. I have also attached a document that has some helpful information on making silage on a small scale. Small-Scale Silage Making reduced size.pdf (600.8 KB)