Speaking Of Silos

[Bill VA]

When I ride through the countryside - anywhere, it is not unusual to see an old silo, no building attached anymore and often no roof cap on it.

It makes me wonder what was going on - on that farm back in the day.

Dairies, even in Virginia, use to be plentiful - small family farms.

I wonder to what extent these old silos represent a long gone dairy.

Question - what percentage of silos were typically dairy?

 

[Part Time Pete]

Around here they all were. No row crop or beef farms back then. It was five miles from town to our place - up until the late seventies there were ten dairy farms in that distance - only one left now. It was a great way of life, but it's all gone now

 

[Mark-Ia]

In Iowa most were for feedlots to fatten steers for market with some dairy in northeast Iowa.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

When I ride through the countryside - anywhere, it is not unusual to see an old silo, no building attached anymore and often no roof cap on it.

It makes me wonder what was going on - on that farm back in the day.

Dairies, even in Virginia, use to be plentiful - small family farms.

I wonder to what extent these old silos represent a long gone dairy.

Question - what percentage of silos were typically dairy?

Here in central NY a silo represented a dairy. A just as you say, some survive, while everything else may be gone. Mostly concrete stave, and a few tile silos survive. Many were wood, but very few of them survive. This farm originally had a square, framed wooden silo. It was dismantled and replaced with a tile silo before I came here. An octagonal wooden framed silo just went over in a big wind we had last winter. It was the last wooden silo around that I recall. It was right on a four corners, and was quite a landmark for a long time. The silo on our home farm was thick wooden staves, tongue and groove, cut on an angle so they made a circle, held together with many steel hoops.

 

[Tgrasher]

In Southern Illinois, especially east of St Louis, it was all dairy. Still a bunch but nothing like it used to be.

 

[John T]

Anytime I see those old blue abandoned AO Smith Harvestor Silos (NOT thinking all the other stave or concrete silos) I think in their day they must have offered one heck of a good plan and financing etc cause they sure sold a lot of them. What was their deal back then they sure sold a ton of them ?????????

John T

 

[NY 986]

Anytime I see those old blue abandoned AO Smith Harvestor Silos (NOT thinking all the other stave or concrete silos) I think in their day they must have offered one heck of a good plan and financing etc cause they sure sold a lot of them. What was their deal back then they sure sold a ton of them ?????????

John T

The big sales pitch with the Harvestore silo was superior feed quality. But they only looked at best case (or worst case depending on your viewpoint) scenario. Often timely harvesting of the crop along with good storage practices with conventional did more to insure good feed quality than the big blue silo. The maintenance cycle in terms of seals and unloader often meant more expense than what was originally anticipated. Huge dairies doomed the Harvestore because those operations needed to move far more silage than what could pushed up a 9 inch blower pipe on an hourly basis. Also, a 5 yard payloader could move more feed per hour than a Harvestore unloader which in turn was faster than an unloader in a top unload conventional silo.

 

[NY 986]

The big sales pitch with the Harvestore silo was superior feed quality. But they only looked at best case (or worst case depending on your viewpoint) scenario. Often timely harvesting of the crop along with good storage practices with conventional did more to insure good feed quality than the big blue silo. The maintenance cycle in terms of seals and unloader often meant more expense than what was originally anticipated. Huge dairies doomed the Harvestore because those operations needed to move far more silage than what could pushed up a 9 inch blower pipe on an hourly basis. Also, a 5 yard payloader could move more feed per hour than a Harvestore unloader which in turn was faster than an unloader in a top unload conventional silo.

I should also mention that if putting up high moisture corn the energy savings from not needing to dry corn plus higher digestibility was a sales pitch. Energy prices spiked during the 1970's but declined sharply during the 1980's changing the value of the silo. Also, if needing ready cash a farmer had more options with dried corn versus high moisture corn. A very big deal during the 1980's.

 

[John T]

The big sales pitch with the Harvestore silo was superior feed quality. But they only looked at best case (or worst case depending on your viewpoint) scenario. Often timely harvesting of the crop along with good storage practices with conventional did more to insure good feed quality than the big blue silo. The maintenance cycle in terms of seals and unloader often meant more expense than what was originally anticipated. Huge dairies doomed the Harvestore because those operations needed to move far more silage than what could pushed up a 9 inch blower pipe on an hourly basis. Also, a 5 yard payloader could move more feed per hour than a Harvestore unloader which in turn was faster than an unloader in a top unload conventional silo.

Thanks for the info

John T

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

The big sales pitch with the Harvestore silo was superior feed quality. But they only looked at best case (or worst case depending on your viewpoint) scenario. Often timely harvesting of the crop along with good storage practices with conventional did more to insure good feed quality than the big blue silo. The maintenance cycle in terms of seals and unloader often meant more expense than what was originally anticipated. Huge dairies doomed the Harvestore because those operations needed to move far more silage than what could pushed up a 9 inch blower pipe on an hourly basis. Also, a 5 yard payloader could move more feed per hour than a Harvestore unloader which in turn was faster than an unloader in a top unload conventional silo.

Didn't they call them "blue bankruptcy tubes" or something like that? Many farms went broke in the early-to-mid 1980s because they overextended themselves putting up Harvestores, and then the commodity market tanked.

Check out "10th Generation Dairyman" on youtube. His farm just abandoned their bunkers in favor of three 24x132 conventional upright silos to support robot feeders. I didn't think you could blow silage that high but the custom outfit that puts up their feed has this super-blower powered directly by a huge diesel engine.

 

[NY 986]

Didn't they call them "blue bankruptcy tubes" or something like that? Many farms went broke in the early-to-mid 1980s because they overextended themselves putting up Harvestores, and then the commodity market tanked.

Check out "10th Generation Dairyman" on youtube. His farm just abandoned their bunkers in favor of three 24x132 conventional upright silos to support robot feeders. I didn't think you could blow silage that high but the custom outfit that puts up their feed has this super-blower powered directly by a huge diesel engine.

They were called blue monuments or auction beacons. Changes in the market affected a fair number of Harvestore owners but not all. A guy up the road from me put up a 90 ft silo to handle high moisture corn for his hog operation in 1978. That market cratered during the early 1980's like a lot of other farm commodities. Quite a number simply were bit by 1970's inflation which in turn drove up interest rates. Fuel, fertilizer, and other inputs took on a rapidly rising cost structure which cut into the ability of farmers to service debt on land, buildings including silos, and equipment. Some guys refinanced with their lender but went from paying 7.5 percent interest during the early 1970's to over 15 percent by 1981. Kind of ironic that Cornell helped fuel the blue silo craze by having several of them at their Dryden research facility. I remember them as a little kid and looked at them in all at the Empire Farm Days which was held there during the 1970's.
132 ft silo is more than what I would want to climb. That would be a challenge for a Case IH 600 blower. The older IH 56 would reach 100 ft. Dad's IH 40 was good to 60 ft with haylage.

 

[Fixingfarmer]

In Iowa most were for feedlots to fatten steers for market with some dairy in northeast Iowa.

Yep neighbors had and still have dairy cattle but our silos fed only beef cattle they upgraded to a bunker in the 70s. Herefords back then. Still have cows no feeding out. And no using either silo they put a 3 foot steel wall on top of the bunker then a roof and store hay in it. The tall one shifted off it’s foundation during the derecho and had to be knocked down.

 

[mechanicfred]

Father in Law had 4 blue tubes, 3 20x80's and one 25x90, the bags were piped into the hay barn. Put good feed in and good feed comes out. He liked them, yes the Goliath unloaders needed maintenance but no one was climbing the silo in the winter months. He made living and there still in use today. They've been up since the mid 70's.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Here in Ontario,Canada most silos were on Dairy farms. There were a few hog barns that had poured concrete silos for high moisture corn and a few hog barns had a Harvestor silo. At one time in the 60’s beef feed lots did make an appearance most used stave silos that were filled with corn silage back then . No matter hogs beef or dairy, the vast majority of the silos built in the 60’s and 70’s never got filled more than 15 times. Oh sure there are a few farms that the next generation took over with dairy and some silos got filled 30-40 times, but that is exceptional . I don’t know of a hog farm that is still in operation. And can only think of 3-4 beef feed lots. And the dairy farms are dropping off like autumn leaves empty silos are everywhere around me

 

[stoughtonfarmboy]

The big sales pitch with the Harvestore silo was superior feed quality. But they only looked at best case (or worst case depending on your viewpoint) scenario. Often timely harvesting of the crop along with good storage practices with conventional did more to insure good feed quality than the big blue silo. The maintenance cycle in terms of seals and unloader often meant more expense than what was originally anticipated. Huge dairies doomed the Harvestore because those operations needed to move far more silage than what could pushed up a 9 inch blower pipe on an hourly basis. Also, a 5 yard payloader could move more feed per hour than a Harvestore unloader which in turn was faster than an unloader in a top unload conventional silo.

A joke in South Central Wisconsin in the late 1960s was that Harvestore meant the farmer must slready have his Cadillac and his wife must already have her mink coat......

 

[NY 986]

Here in Ontario,Canada most silos were on Dairy farms. There were a few hog barns that had poured concrete silos for high moisture corn and a few hog barns had a Harvestor silo. At one time in the 60’s beef feed lots did make an appearance most used stave silos that were filled with corn silage back then . No matter hogs beef or dairy, the vast majority of the silos built in the 60’s and 70’s never got filled more than 15 times. Oh sure there are a few farms that the next generation took over with dairy and some silos got filled 30-40 times, but that is exceptional . I don’t know of a hog farm that is still in operation. And can only think of 3-4 beef feed lots. And the dairy farms are dropping off like autumn leaves empty silos are everywhere around me

The college farm at Alfred, NY used a concrete stave silo for its beef cattle program and I remember them filling it with corn silage during the early 1980's.

 

[jwal10]

I don't know of 1 beef farm that ever had an upright silo, here. There were pit silo's dug into a hill and a few with concrete sides but most of them were dairy. Dad had a Mt. Hood concrete stave silo built in the mid 50's to replace the old wood silo. It still stands but only a machine shed is close to it, no beef cattle on the farm since 1980. Dairy cows were sold in 1963 when Grade A was mandated to be milk line from the old can milkers. Dad sold cream for a couple years in cans, still. Wood silo was made out of redwood tongue and groove that was used to build a loose hay feed shed between loft barn and open loafing barn. After Mom and dad sold out in 1980, and the new buyer was going to bulldoze all the buildings, I tore down the lean-to to salvage the redwood for projects. I also got a bunch of pine ship lap out of the loft barn. Newer dairies here pored slabs with concrete walls. I don't think a blue silo was built in this county. Last year the last and biggest dairy quit. They only had a concrete slab silo There is 1 smaller organic Jersey dairy that my son grows feed for left in this county. He has a pit silo. His milk is shipped to Bandon cheese facility over east on the Columbia River, picked up every other day....James

 

[omahagreg]

Speaking of Harvestore silos.
I am planning a silo and barn around a water feature in my yard in Omaha! Started with the silo-figured if that did not work I'd scrap the whole plan! I plan to proceed.