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One of the most time consuming winter jobs on a livestock farm is processing homegrown grain for feeding stock. There are significant financial incentives for livestock producers to maximise the use of homegrown grain in their rations by reducing costs and providing traceability.

An established and increasingly popular approach is to combine grain early at around 25 - 40% moisture. This moist grain is then passed through a specialist crimping machine which cracks the seed coat to expose the starch.

Moist, crimped grain is then ensiled in an airtight clamp before opening up for feeding. An effective additive such as biocrimp must be applied to ensure aerobic stability.

Early harvesting maximises the dry matter yield and nutritional value of both grain and straw. Crimping involves combining  crops approximately three weeks before conventional harvest allowing the earlier establishment of the following crop.

The benefits of crimped cereals will only be realised if good management is observed during the harvesting and crimping process and a crop specific additive used.