Is Grass or Corn Better for Silage? | Farming Simulator Science

[@boomerang91]

Great info! One thing I'd like to point out is even though you get almost double the liters from corn silage, you don't have to replant grass and you can harvest it 3 times per year vs only one time with corn.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@boomerang91 yep that’s absolutely true!

[@jakobranzenhofer2335]

In FS25 you can harvest 4 times a year actually as the yield does not cange between the 2 stages of ready to harvest on grass.

[@thisismyusername6717]

You dont have to replant it you dont have to roll it and you dont have to spray herbicide either. Weeds never grow in my grass fields and since you only plant once u only roll once…after you plant.

[@jamesmcmahonii8433]

​@jakobranzenhofer2335 i got 4 fewer round bales in March vs. waiting until June on the sane field with a 92% yield bonus. Thought that was interesting.

[@mitchgreen700]

Great information! Thank you for sharing

[@fastfarmer814]

Thanks for watching!

[@Rhamirezz85]

You fixed the chart :D Oats with straw and a McDon swather is really good.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@Rhamirezz85 yes I did! I plan to check how much swathing helps soon!

[@beauneo]

Grey comparison. I chop corn for the save I’m on now. I’m doing a Dairy farm and I am having more fun doing one huge harvest a year of 800k to 1m liters of silage. I sell most of it on and just buy in straw as I need. Completely cut out any arable farming. I’d probably get more off those fields in grass. But I’d also spend a ton more time mowing and raking. What I’ve found is after the chopper my equipment is really cheap. Basic mower and baler for hay. I use real small equipment for the small bit of grass I need to do. I’m feeding 75 goats, 50 buffalo and 50 angus off the hay from the two smallest fields on the starter farm. I spend most of my time in a telehandler feeding and once a year doing tillage for corn. And once more chopping it all. Can’t go wrong either way.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@beauneo Yes that’s exactly what I think. One big harvest each year instead of multiple grass harvests. Thanks for sharing!

[@jeffreylyons1531]

Silage additive is a bacteria inoculant, put the right types of bacteria in the grass or corn to help it ferment properly.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@jeffreylyons1531 awesome! Thanks for the info!

[@ESPirits87]

I recommend the Krone Big M 500 v1.1 mod, it's the only mower that doesn't bounce when mowing.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@ESPirits87 good to know!

[@davidshapiro8149]

great vid

[@fastfarmer814]

@@davidshapiro8149 thanks!

[@Opie-qr6gx]

Curious how you dumped your chaff in the bunkers to get it nice and level before compacting? I'm thinking of using the Chaff / grass auger wagon to "shoot" it into the Bunker from the side. So far I've been doing grass silage using AI to mow with Krone into the grass auger wagon for easy offload to a manually driven wagon (using the drive thru bunkers), but I'm thinking of switching over to corn and using the riverbends biogas bunkers. Tired of trucking silage to the biogas plant.

[@fastfarmer814]

I use tipper trailers and set the cruise at 1 MPH while I unload. The game kinda auto-levels it for you.

[@stormwooten1606]

Best way for grass is 180cm round bales and the hybrid xtractor for wrapping. The autoload trailer for round bales can haul 24. I did bunkers in fs22, too damn tedious

[@fastfarmer814]

@@stormwooten1606 yeah it definitely took a while lol

[@chrisjones6002]

Unless I'm mistaken you can't put a forage header on a tractor without the forage harvester part too. The one under forage harvesters that needs 375hp.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@chrisjones6002 yes, it needs the adapter as well as the header

[@Rooftopmatty]

Poplar is the way to go with crops now, takes longer yes but it’s well worth it, I planted 13 boxes of polar im just over half done the field (6.5 boxes) and I’ve gotten 1.2-1.4 million

[@fastfarmer814]

@@Rooftopmatty Really? That’s cool! I’ll be checking out the rest of the crops on this same field so we can see exactly how they compare.

[@jaegernelson5278]

yea poplar is busted lmao, I'm glad tho since it takes so long

[@randomlife718]

Cotton is really good. You can have just a little inveated if you lease the harvester.

[@fastfarmer814]

Yep I plan to check all the other crops as well!

[@cmdr_stretchedguy]

corn: a lot more silage once a year. Grass: mow 3 times per year which means almost double the silage of corn per year

[@fastfarmer814]

@@cmdr_stretchedguyyeah that sums it up!

[@Toddford1568]

My cousins have a farm that we do silage every year and in fs19 we did the biggest field on the American map in silage doing it that style one guy chopping 2 runners and one guy pushing and packing and we had fun but it took several days of playing to finish it bc we started with a 2 or 3 row pull type chopper witch is what they have.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@Toddford1568 that’s awesome! Sounds like fun!

[@Toddford1568]

@fastfarmer814 always is a good time unless chopper stops up but that don't happen in the game

[@liamontop1]

whats the name of the loading wagons that have a lot of storage?

[@fastfarmer814]

Lizard Tardis XL I believe.

[@shaunkneece2866]

Fyi, you can cut and load grass into a trailer in 1 step with a Forage harvester too with the krone header just like you did the corn chaff. No windrowing, no bailers wrappers or pickup wagons. PRO TIP, if you use a Forage harvester and trailer on contracts you can keep the grass for huge profits on mowing contracts you otherwise can't collect grass on. Also, not trying to be a troll, but when you have more than 1 variable in any experiment the results are hardly ever accurate.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@shaunkneece2866 that’s fair, I didn’t realize that. Only variable should be the crop grown for this experiment

[@shaunkneece2866]

@@fastfarmer814 What I was implying was that the harvesting can be done the same, but the number of harvests in 1 year, the need to reseed, and the need for weeding are not equal between grass and corn. If you take all that into account, grass silage is still king by a mile. However, I do like to mix it up and glad you made others aware that chaff silage is an option. At the end of the day 100,000L of chaff and 100,000 liters of grass will both become 100,000L of silage. And over the course of 1 year you can get far more liters of grass than chaff with far less work. Thus my grass silage is king statement.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@shaunkneece2866 that is true, however I like to consider the amount of time I invest into the crops as well. Yes you can do three harvests of grass in one year, but you have to spend the time harvesting three times, then waiting for it to ferment, then loading it all up and selling it. I prefer corn chaff silage, but it seems that many of you prefer grass lol

[@fraserskomorowski2311]

Did you account for the multiple harvest of grass that you can do?

[@fastfarmer814]

@@fraserskomorowski2311 not in the results, although I did mention that in the video. If repeating year after year, grass is better because of that fact.

[@andrerodon3921]

I've heard the swather doesn't improve grass yield - is that true?

[@fastfarmer814]

@@andrerodon3921 I don’t think it does, but I’ve never tested that so I can’t be sure

[@IndaQLV]

Remember that you need to only plant grass once... and you can harvest it 3 times while corn is growing.

[@fastfarmer814]

Yes, grass makes a lot more over a year, but you do need to do the work every time. I like corn more because it makes more per harvest.

[@Asylum21]

If you're looking for someone to play with let me know. I play solo most of the time as well but would love to have someone to play the game with.

[@steveelsner1406]

As others have already mentioned, the balance comes out with harvest frequency. Even with seasons off and no planting restrictions, you can start grass with a smaller investment and you get shorter wait times between harvests. You end up doing more work per currency earned, but you can front load both the work and the profits earlier into the playthrough. It's almost frustrating at how balanced the two are, as you never know if you make the right choice doing one over the other. An efficient setup for corn silage is huge money. Base game gear well over half a million spent to do it well. With grass you can do it painfully with much less cash to start.

[@fastfarmer814]

Yes, that’s the conundrum I ran into lol. It came down to which crop I prefer doing in the end, which happens to be corn silage.

[@hell2moders]

no poplars, potatos, or suger beets?

[@fastfarmer814]

@@hell2moders not yet. Those will be coming soon in another video!

[@thisismyusername6717]

Pro tip for anyone doing silage: do NOT use the pull behind wrapper/bailer combo. It is TERRIBLE bc u stop every 10 seconds and then u always have to back up bc u didnt stop in time then have to drive a trailer around and get out to pick the bales blah blah NO! Get you a forage harvestor and the STATIONARY bailer (its blue) alot more expensive but you will thank me later. While the machine is working you can pick the bales up (on ps5/xbox liftable bales mod) and directly stack them onto a trailer you have parked next to it.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@thisismyusername6717 there is also a mod so the round balers automatically stop when full. You can just leave the cruise control on. But yes, it can be annoying to pick up the bales afterwards.

[@thisismyusername6717]

@ not on ps5 or xbox. Stuck with the standard baler. Thats why its game changing they made the liftable bales and pallets mod for consoles.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@thisismyusername6717 ahh I gotcha. Good point

[@lukepeters1913]

On PC, I have a modded wrapper that doesn't stop because of a pre-chamber. Still king

[@Olker8]

I just keep driving. You’ll pick up the missed spots on the next harvest. With speed up you can harvest indefinitely

[@leamcarroll4343]

if u start mp farm i would love to join and help

[@Mark-Rain]

Forage silo FTW. Bunkers for boneheads.

[@fastfarmer814]

Yes they are nice!

[@ashslayer3285]

for me the better for silage is grass...no need plow or cultivate ...and seed again..to much time use..corn may once harvest per year but u must plow again

[@fastfarmer814]

That's fair. Both have their advantages for sure

[@Rusouv3]

the only difference is that corn takes 1 month to plant and 6 to be ready to harvest (7mnths total). Grass is 1 month to plant (forever, no need to replant) and 3 to grow... (4mnths to begin with and then just 3mnths after that)... So, in 1 year calendar you can have 3-4 grass harvest and only 1 corn harvest. So, multiple that 64k times 3 or 4.... Grass silage is the way to go. $$$$$$$$$

[@Rusouv3]

great video!!!!

[@fastfarmer814]

@@Rusouv3 yes that’s true, however you will be spending more time obviously by harvesting grass 3x every year, so it balances out

[@Rusouv3]

@@fastfarmer814 uhmmm... giving that mowers go at 22 kph and forage headers only at 10 kph. WIth mower you'd do it in half time; 3 months later the half time. .. That is one full time for the forage. Two times with mower, One time with the forage. Same amount of time and double the yield just by mowing. ;)

[@RydexTheWolf]

Nah, growing lettuce in the greenhouses is the new King, almost 50k/month per large greenhouse on the easiest economy and all you need to do is keep it full of water.

[@fastfarmer814]

@@RydexTheWolf Definitely worth your while doing lettuce!

[@Dr4g0nW00d]

grass is easier mow it rake it bale it wait done

[@ASGundogs]

In FS22, the most lucrative answer was both... Cut grass in March, drill corn in April, harvest corn four months later in August, immediately replant with grass, cut grass in October 😎 I havent quite got that far in FS25 yet but am assuming it is similar....

[@fastfarmer814]

@@ASGundogs yes finding ways to double or even triple crop is king. Me personally, I like the ease of only one crop a year but there’s definitely better ways