The Maize Growers Association figures for the maize crop this year indicate that a 43t /ha crop will be costing about £29 per tonne fresh weight to grow - a lower yield will inevitably push this figure up.

This could be an unfortunate but likely scenario for many after a dry summer.

Waste in silage clamps can be as high as 20% or as low as 5% in well managed and covered clamps.
But how much of your silage will be affected by your choice of sheeting?

See - https://dairy.ahdb.org.uk/…/do-yo...u-have-too-much-waste-in…/…

'For clamps, the vulnerable zone is 0.5m from the side wall or the top sheet of the clamp. Many producers disregard this portion of the clamp as being the ‘bits around the side’ but these evaluations show a significant proportion (on average 27 per cent of the volume and 21 per cent of the fresh weight) of all the silage is in these vulnerable zones. For the clamps assessed, the average cost of filling the clamp was around £21,000, which means on average over £4,000 worth of silage is in the vulnerable zone'.

When you are considering your silage clamps and covers - don’t cut corners come to ARK Agriculture and we will give you all the advice and products you need to keep clamps waste in single figures.

This includes Oxygen Barrier silage sheets (no more cling film!) , netting gravel bags and our gravel bag fixing system.

You can read more about the range here or give us a call!

http://www.arkagriculture.com/silage-sheets.html

Farm safety is something that the industry is going to great efforts to improve and one way you can make your farm a safer place to work is to ensure your staff wear hi-visibility clothing.

This might mean having to wear fluorescent vests over work clothes - hi-vis vests can be forgotten, dirty and uncomfortable when they are worn for long periods in tractor cabs.

ARK Agriculture, better known for their innovation in silage clamps and silage clamp covering, have the solution with their unique range of extremely highly quality, high visibility work shirts.

‘We took our time to find the right partner to supply us the best possible hard wearing and comfortable shirts on the market and the Swedish company Blakladers range ticked those boxes,’ Says ARK Director Will Wilson.

The shirts have the same ‘built in’ visibility requirements as conventional florescent jackets ; High Vis class 1 requirements, and EN ISO 20471- the shirts marked UV also meet the requirements EN1356-2 (UPF 40+) – sun protection

They are made out of polyester and/or cotton which have been treated to create a breathable, tough and comfortable material that can easily be worn all day.

‘Having taken these shirts for a road test ourselves and after some awesome feedback from customers we can safel
y say these are a perfect safety solution for anyone working on a farm in the UK’

The shirts can be branded with your own farm logo and ARK welcomes all enquiries for large and small volume orders.

Call ARK now on 01787220560, email sales@arkagriculture.com

Some of the advantages you might want to consider from ARK Safety Shirts.

​For the employer

Never have staff on site without wearing the appropriate high-vis (no more leaving mucky high vis vests in tractor cabs)
Easily identify the people on your farm, if they aren’t wearing your shirts, they shouldn’t be there
Invest in your staffs presentation and your farms image
Give your staff the right clothing from day one that will last well and they will want to wear
Reduce the risk of staff being injured on your farm

For the employee

A sense of team unity on the farm
Reduces the chance of serious injury to staff at night and working in low visibility areas
Easy to clean, the shirts will not shrink after multiple washes
Hard wearing double stitched seams and wicking material that reduces sweating and odour during long work days
Less personal cost for clothing, more hygienic as shirts can be laundered ‘on farm’