When farmers make hay, the key to preservation is to ensure low moisture content and to keep the hay dry. You need a way to keep the silage from spoiling. This fact has made it possible for dairy farmers to keep cows in reliable milk production even during the winter.īut one caveat exists. They’re also responsible for one of the more important inventions in the history of modern agriculture: silage.ĭeveloped through experiments in the 1800s, silage is essentially a foliage crop-perhaps an entire corn stalk, perhaps an entire alfalfa plant, perhaps something else-that has been finely chopped and then stored while the moisture content is still high, somewhere near 60 percent.īecause of the moisture content, silage maintains a higher energy and protein level than dried forage (hay).
Silos do much more than just hold dry grain or seed. And the word “silo” actually comes from the Greek word “siros,” meaning “a pit to hold grain.” Roman records indicate that pits stored grain in northern Africa. The same is true of those from ancient Greece, the Middle East, and North and South America. Indeed, remains of ancient Egyptian storehouses are still in existence today. The most famous ancient account of this idea is probably the biblical story in Genesis 41, in which Joseph advises Egypt to stockpile grain so that it may survive the seven years of predicted famine. F or millennia, agricultural civilizations have realized that the ability to store excess grain produced by bumper crops provides a safety buffer against lean years, or even just a long winter.
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