Winners in the eleventh Santam Agriculture National Silage Competition announced

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Plaas Media has been presenting its Santam Agriculture National Silage competition for eleven years now. This year’s competition received 88 entries of which 67 were maize silage, 15 oats silage, and six feed sorghum silage. These entries are made up of 60 bunkers, 22 bags, and six bales.

This year’s entries

A total of 21 companies entered themselves or their clients into this year’s competition. These companies are Quantum Foods/Nova Feeds, Exact Silage, SSK, AFGRI Klipheuwel, Bloekomboom Boerdery, Sparta Beef, Nutribase, Kemin Industries, Lake Agriculture, Sparta Baby Beef, Heinz Boerdery, Pannar Seed, Strapping & Profile Manufacturers, Budissa Bagger, TWK Agri, Pioneer Seed, Meadow Feeds Natal, Meadow Feeds Randfontein, Van Greunen Boerdery, AFGRI Animal Feeds, and Leading Edge.

Sponsors

The main sponsor in this year’s competition was once again Santam Agriculture, who has been the name sponsor since the competition’s inception. The prize and cash sponsors are Pannar Seed, Nutribase, Pioneer Seed, TWK Agri, Raniplast, and Orkel. Various new companies were involved as prize or cash sponsors this year, namely Euro Bagging, Novatex, and Advanta Seed. The laboratory partner was once again Labworld. 

Sampling

The sampling was conducted by two post-graduate Animal Science students from the University of Pretoria, Frans Malan and Stefan Corbet. Both were trained in the sampling process by Richardt Venter of AgSci Unlimited, one of the competition’s co-ordinators. This year the team covered 14 641km while sampling.

Sample testing was conducted by Dr Elrisa Taljaard and her team at Labworld. The analysis was done by the overseer of the competition protocol, Prof Robin Meeske, formerly of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s Outeniqua Research Farm. Prof Meeske recently retired and this will be the last year that he is involved in the competition.

Meet the category winners

Plaas Media and Santam Agriculture are proud to announce the first three places in each category.

In the maize category:

Dewald te Water has been participating in the competition since 2021 when Te Water Boerdery entered under the Exact Silage brand in the test category for silage bales. Since then, he has won the feed sorghum category twice and has placed second in the maize category.

In the feed sorghum category:  

Marcu Jansen van Rensburg is a well-known name in the silage industry and has placed among the top positions in the feed sorghum category several times.

In the oats category:

We welcome a new winner in the oats category this year. Brian Hume entered the competition in 2024 for the second time, and took top honours in the oats category.

And the 2024 Santam Agriculture National Silage King is …

Dewald te Water! This is a well-deserved win and also a first for the competition since it is a silage bale that took top honours.

Te Water took hands with Burger Marais and Johan Kritzinger, owners of Kameeldrift Feedlot, in 2021 to start Exact Silage. In an article with Veeplaas Te Water said that he believes is makes sense to ensile only the best quality maize, since it is the best source of starch, protein, and roughage. Be sure to pick up a copy of the January edition of Veeplaas to find out more about his silage-making practices.

Extraordinary results

This year’s competition delivered some interesting results. Marcu Jansen van Rensburg’s feed sorghum silage performed extraordinarily well and placed third overall, after Te Water and Michael van Greunen’s maize silage.

According to Richardt Venter, one of the competition co-ordinators, Winterstorm Investments is one of the biggest producers of feed sorghum silage in South Africa. This North West-based operation’s silage is produced for sale in smaller quantities to co-ops and animal feed depots. They maintain very high standards and even have their silage audited by an independent silage consultant. They measure certain aspects of their silage daily, not only during the silage-making process, but also during packaging. Their management practices ensure that they produce very good quality silage.

There is a lot to be said for Brian Hume’s silage, but basically he did everything right. Hume’s compaction, processing, and dry material harvesting window was optimal and his silage boasted correct fermentation levels, stable silage, and good starch contents. His silage is the perfect example of silage that meet the competition’s standards.

New things on the horizon

The competition co-ordinators have decided to expand the competition in 2025 to give recognition to the best performing storage forms as well, not only the crops. Thus 2025 will see six categories in which producers will stand a chance of winning:

• Maize silage
• Feed sorghum silage
• Oats silage
• Best bale (any of the three abovementioned crops)
• Best bunker (any of the three abovementioned crops)
• Best silo bag (any of the three abovementioned crops).

An overall winner will still be announced and selected from the six category winners. Congratulations again to this year’s winners who often had to produce silage under difficult circumstances. Our sincere thanks to our name sponsor, Santam Agriculture, and to the various prize sponsors without whom this competition would not have been possible.

For more information about the competition, 2025 entries, or other queries, contact Deidré Louw on 066 231 2430 of send an email to deidre@plaasmedia.co.za