03 September 2004: Allora dairyfarmer, Scott Christensen chose to plant specialist silage sorghum, Chopper again last season. Around seven hectares of the dryland crop yielded 240 tonnes of silage.

Mr Christensen said silage is a large part of the 160 head dairy's feed program.
"Silage makes up around 50 percent of our feed," he said. "At the moment we're feeding the herd about 2.5 tonnes/night along with grain, so the 240t we harvested won't go too far."We use about 8-900 tonnes per year."

To this end, Mr Christensen said he also had around10ha of corn planted, which was looking to be an excellent crop, and will hopefully provide a large bulk of silage. "Corn is preferable to the Chopper," he said. "But the reason we like Chopper so much is because it's more reliable, you plant it and you will get a crop, the problem with corn is that you need a good season for a decent crop."

Mr Christensen said they have been planting Chopper for around five years, and will continue doing so. "Chopper has taken just taken over from corn,"" he said. "You always get something from Chopper." For the past couple of seasons, the Christensen's have contracted other farmers to produce extra tonnages of silage to meet their feed needs. Their own crop went on to provide an excellent result. The crop was top dressed with one bag per acre of urea about four to six weeks after planting.

Caption: Allora dairyfarmer Scott Christensen with the silage made from Pacific Seed's forage variety, Chopper.