An Evaluation of Spraying Machine for Silage Production

Abstract

Silage production requires a mixture of molasses, inoculum, and water to store forage. Inoculum or microbes are mixed into the forage to inhibit the reproduction of bacteria and organisms that could damage the silage. Silage processing requires workforces to manually prepare and measure liquid additives to formulate the solutions. In MARDI, a machine that accurately mixes an inoculum, water, and molasses has been developed. The machine eliminates the need for manual operation and can reduce the labour involved in preparing a liquid formulation. Besides, the machine enables agricultural input to be handled efficiently. This machine can increase silage productivity for ruminant feed preparation. The machine's accuracy is 99.63% for measuring water and inoculum and 98.58% for measuring molasses solution. The machine's capacity is 30 barrels/hour for preparing a mixture of additive materials into 25 litres of water while 60–120 barrels/hour for preparing a mixture of additive materials into a 30 kg silage barrel.