On the more than 300 acres of land at WVU Potomac State College’s Malone Farm, located just outside of Forth Ashby, it's harvesting season.
Here, not only is this home to 245 head of cattle, but it’s also where the fields that feed the livestock are located. Normally, the beef cows are content to graze in the lush pastures and then saunter as a herd over to the barn for their feeding troughs. It’s part of their ritual for three seasons of the year.
But come winter, it takes this summer harvesting to meet their nutritional and dietary needs when the earth is frozen.
"That’s what we are doing right now,” says Tyler Rohrbaugh, farm manager at Malone. “For the next weeks, we are harvesting for winter. We will have enough hay to feed all 245 head of cattle through the winter just from this one field alone.”
But cows need more than hay, and so the summer months will also produce harvesting of grain and corn and specialty grasses – all collected and stored in airtight “white balloons” to allow what is called anaerobic fermentation to occur.
In general terms, anaerobic fermentation is a metabolic process where microorganisms (like yeast or bacteria) break down carbohydrates—such as glucose—to produce energy in the absence of oxygen. Anaerobic fermentation of winter grains is a critical agricultural and farming process used to create nutrient-dense livestock feed. The process keeps the feed from spoiling.
“It works the same way pickling or canning works, in really simple terms,” Rohrbaugh says, explaining the science to the business of farming.
In the absence of oxygen, lactic acid bacteria convert the sugars in the grain into organic acids. This in turn drops the pH, naturally “pickling” the grain and stopping the growth of harmful bacteria and molds. The fermentation process breaks down complex plant fibers and makes the nutrients in the fermented grains easier for animals to digest.
For most modern farmers, anaerobic fermentation takes place in what looks like long white plastic expandable tubing. This is where the grains are stored after being harvested from the field. These long white plastic “tubes” are commonly known as bale tubes or Ag Bags in the farming and agricultural community. They are created by specialized machines (like a bale wrapper or bagger) that pack hay tightly end-to-end into a continuous plastic sleeve. Farmers often pack higher-moisture hay into these tubes. The plastic creates an airtight seal that causes the grass to ferment, resulting in highly nutritious livestock feed - also referred to as “baleage.”
“Most farms don’t use silos anymore, but back in the day, this is what grain silos were for,” Rohrbaugh says. “They were airtight containers. Or tried to be. Now, most farms today use the same method we do at Malone. The product is stored in these bale tubes that keep air and light out.”
“It’s like a giant sausage stuffer,” adds assistant manager, Steven “Burnie” Burner. “You have to keep the oxygen out.”
“Oxygen is the enemy of storing hay and grain for winter,” says Rohrbaugh. “Oxygen will allow mold and bacteria to grow on the stored hay, grasses, and corn. Back when farmers were using silos, there was still a 30 percent chance that what was stored would go bad. And back then, farmers were willing to take a chance with 30 percent because they had to. Today, with new methods, we can reduce that amount and keep everything we collect for winter.”
In fact, planning for what the cattle on the Potomac State property will eat goes far beyond what is being harvested right now.
“We started a year ago with planning it out,” says Rohrbaugh. “The hay we are collecting now was planted last winter. It grows through the season, and it’s harvested in late spring. It gets fermented through the summer and fall, and then it’s fed to the cattle this winter. So, the whole planning and producing goes from winter to winter.”
The Malone farm has two harvesting vehicles. Each works in conjunction with the other. Once the hay is cut, it can sit in the fields uncollected in a dry environment for two days. Timing, however, is everything. If it rains or gets too hot or humid, the condition of the hay can be altered. Nutrients and vitamins essential for the diet of cattle can be lost. Therefore, the staff at the farm keep a watchful eye on the weather report and climate changes before planning to harvest and store.
After the fields are plowed sufficiently, Rohrbaugh and Burner man the two harvesting vehicles again to collect the future food. Both vehicles essentially vacuum the hay from the field, collecting it into the back massive bed storage areas of the vehicles. Each truck can hold 10-12 tons of grain. Once each truck is full, the vehicles return to the barn to store it into the long white bale tubes. Once the trucks are emptied, the bags are sealed, and the trucks return to the field to finish any additional harvesting.
“We fill those up,” Burner says, referring to the storage bags. “We just keep filling them until they are full.”
Rohrbaugh says even then, they must be cautious of the amount each large bag contains.
“They really are like a balloon,” he says. “You can’t fill them too full, or they will pop and split, and you don’t want that to happen, so you constantly have to watch and pack as much as you can into them without overpacking them.”
This process of harvesting for winter will continue all summer. With students home for the season, unless some of them wish to volunteer or get summer school credit hours, the work falls squarely on Rohrbaugh and Burner to complete.
“We will be out here all summer, collecting food for winter nearly every day,” Rohrbaugh says. “First, it will be the grain – we are doing what is called Triticale grain now. Then it will be grasses, and from July into fall, we will be harvesting and storing corn. Everything the cows eat at Malone Farm is grown right here at Malone Farm.”
All of this begs the question. Is this where the expression “make hay while the sun shines” comes from?
“That’s exactly where it comes from,” says Rohrbaugh. “You have to do it now, so you are prepared for the winter. You have to get to it when you need to get to it. And that’s what we are out here doing. We are getting to it.”
For more photos showing the process, visit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/potomacstateweb/albums/72177720333779275