Historical review of forage conservation in Venezuela

One of the most relevant events in Venezuela was the introduction of livestock and therefore the beginning of livestock farming, this activity according to Morón (1971), was linked to the conquest in the early sixteenth century, when the first expeditioners brought cattle with them on foot, for his part Briceño (1985), points out that the cattle entered the city Coro and from there the cattle passed to the city of Tocuyo, which came to constitute the main livestock center of the Colony. From there it was exported to New Granada and the extension to the Plains was continued, in the Plains the cattle reproduced rapidly and soon acquired great importance and the cattle were raised in large areas of land, up to thousands of hectares, called herds, where the cattle consumed grass freely.

Likewise, Guzmán and Pérez (1988), indicate that, in the twentieth century, the cultivation of grasses was introduced and species were brought from Africa, such as Elephant grasses and different types of Brachiarias from Brazil, the establishment of these introduced species brought with it another important aspect such as the incorporation of the first practices of grass conservation in the so-called trench silos and bunker silos. Livestock producers began to collect the grasses and store them in large trenches or hollows. They compacted it with the tractor and then covered it with branches or plant material of lower nutritional value. This way they could conserve hundreds of tons of dry matter (DM) and dispense it to the animals.

The authors also point out that although these conservation systems, together with the silos made on the ground surface, between wooden walls, called bunker silos, allowed hundreds of tons of dry grass to be stored, the losses due to rot and deterioration of the plant material were very large, because a lot of air remained between the particles due to insufficient compaction and also due to lack of drainage.

Then, as reported by Castellón (1993), at the beginning of the eighties, the grass compaction system, called silopress, was introduced to the country from Canada and the United States. These systems were based on the use of large-sized, multilayer, black-white bags, These bags, first came imported and then were manufactured in the country and thus this conservation technique became popular among many ranchers. For about 10 years, these bags were used to preserve pastures, being used with a set of equipment such as carts, tiller cutters and pasture compactors.

At present, different forage conservation methods are still being implemented, as an extremely important alternative for livestock production in critical climatic periods, where pasture crop yields are affected and therefore do not meet the nutritional needs of cattle, among the best-known forage conservation techniques is haying and silage.

This practice in the new sustainable paradigm fits perfectly since it allows to significantly reduce the use of concentrated commercial foods and, together with it, take advantage of local forage resources such as grasses, legume species, the foliage of some trees such as moringa whose foliage al in proteins, cassava leaves, corn, sorghum among other plant species that can guarantee the feeding of animals in times of drought.

Dear readers, it can be evidenced in our writing how the use of the silage technique began to evolve in our country Venezuela, after a bibliographic review which certifies that a very effective and ancient practice and despite that, there are some agricultural production units that do not implement it, possibly due to ignorance of the different types of silages, since, although some types of silages are expensive there are others relatively inexpensive to establish. In the next post we will continue talking a little more about the use of silage in the southern area of Lake Maracaibo Venezuela.