Silage Pit Maintenance
A silage pit is an initial big investment but over time will pay for itself. But what do you need to do to make sure that the structure is still sound for the long run and that waste products from your pit aren’t affecting the environment?
Dirty water around farm buildings may seem insignificant, but it can contain valuable nutrients and harmful bacteria from livestock manure and slurry, giving it a high polluting potential.
Silage effluent may not necessarily contain any faecal bacteria, but it is very acidic and highly polluting, therefore must be collected and contained. Applications of silage effluent to land should not exceed 25m3/ha (2,225 gallons/acre) at a dilution rate of 1:1 with water.
Find out more about managing dirty water around the steading on our 4-Point-Plan pages.
There is more information on silage stores and their maintenance in our KTR Factsheet 4 – Maintaining silage storage systems.
