£5000 of Silage Prizes, Enter Now, Freeze 'Til Feb

The AgriScot Silage Competition is making a welcome return to the ‘live’ calendar, with organisers now calling for entries across the classes.

AgriScot will not take place on its usual mid-November date as one of the exhibition halls in which the event is staged, is in use as an NHS Covid vaccination centre. However, the RHASS have assured the AgriScot team that the farm business event will be able to utilise all exhibition halls at Ingliston on its rescheduled date of 9th February 2022, with the silage competition set to be a key attraction then.

The competition is organised by Andrew Best from sponsors, Watson Seeds. Andrew commented:

“We were delighted with the response to the AgriScot Silage Competition in 2020, which by necessity had to utilise video and virtual technologies for the final assessment. But nothing beats the live atmosphere of AgriScot at Ingliston and we greatly look forward to the final of the competition in the main AgriScot ring on 9th February 2022.”

“However, to get there, we have a few calls to action – firstly to all grass silage producers, big bale or clamp. It makes great nutritional and economic sense to have your silage analysed in order to assess feed value; so get that done, then please email your analysis reports to info@agriscot.co.uk as it could also make great business sense to win one of the classes; the total prize value we are offering is over £5000.”

“The first stage of the competition is assessment of the analysis, and we are delighted that our long-standing judge, Hugh McClymont of SAC Crichton Royal Farm, will carry out this duty. Physical samples of the highest-scoring silages will then be collected and frozen at the Crichton Royal to be stored in a stable condition until the final live judging and announcement of the winners at AgriScot in February.”

Successful silages in the 2020 competition came from all parts of Scotland and beyond, with a total of 89 entries. A silage with analysis 42.6 dry matter, 12.9 metabolisable energy, 80 digestibility value and 13.1 Protein took the Big Bale first prize for J McDonald, Achvarasdale, Caithness.

The Beef Clamp Silage winner was from R Black Drochil Castle Peeblesshire with an analysis of 30.6DM 12.3ME 77.0D 15P whilst Campbeltown welcomed the Dairy Clamp Silage title to Kilkivan for T Ralston who’s winning first cut entry analysed at 33.4DM 12.4ME 76.9D 16.9P. Second place in this class went outwith Scotland to C. Stalker of Ratten Castle, Cumbria.

In 2020 – and set to be repeated this time – there were also dedicated classes for silage produced by young farmers. S Van der Spruit of Challoch, Wigtownshire took the yf dairy silage honours, whilst A. Neill, Upper Nisbet, Roxburghshire was the yf beef silage winner.

The deadline for submission of silage analysis entries to the AgriScot silage competition is 17:00 on Wednesday 1st December 2021.

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