The Forage Analysis Assurance (FAA) Group which operates in Ireland and the UK has outlined stronger silage-testing accuracy in its 2024-2025 end-of-season report.
The group, comprising 15 member laboratories located across the UK and Ireland, marks its 25-year anniversary this year.
It has just completed the 2024–2025 silage testing Proficiency Testing (PT) Scheme performance review during the group’s summer Technical and General Meetings this month at Massey Feeds, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.
Performance highlights
- Results from the 2024–2025 PT Scheme year show continued advancement in laboratory testing performance across grass, maize, and whole crop silages;
- Enhanced testing accuracy enables farmers and nutritionists to make more informed silage feeding decisions, resulting in:
- Optimised livestock performance;
- Improved financial returns;
- Reduced feeding inefficiencies;
- Lowered farming environmental impact.
The new 2025-2026 season begins with a call for wider laboratory participation by those offering silage analysis and renewed industry focus on silage assessment.
Proficiency testing
The FAA Group has said that participation in the PT Scheme enables laboratories to assess the quality of their forage analysis and continuously refine their methods to improve accuracy.
This reportedly gives farmers confidence in the nutritional analysis reports provided by FAA Group member laboratories.
Each laboratory receives nine rounds of ring test samples annually, with 10 different silage samples per round. These include grass, maize, and whole crop silages.
Upon receiving the samples, laboratories analyse them using their standard commercial methods, such as Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS).
Their analytical results are then compared with wet chemistry analysis results produced by the FAA Group’s reference laboratory.
Performance is benchmarked across participating labs, and statistical evaluations used to generate a performance grade, published monthly on the FAA Group website.
The data from the PT Scheme also contributes to the FAA Group’s ongoing development and refinement of NIRS calibration equations for grass, maize, and whole crop silages.
New silage season
FAA Group feedback indicates that grass silage quality is average to good this season, but nutritional quality around that has been noted to show greater variation than in previous years.
It said that this emphasises the need for regular testing of silages by a proficient laboratory. This could be at least every month, but particularly as silages are seen to change or new clamps opened.
The new PT Scheme year commences in August for the FAA Group laboratories, with the first sampling and testing round of grass silage.
Grading results for this first round of silage will be published on the FAA Group website in September.
The FAA Group has also released a Silage Sampling Video Guide to support and promote best silage sampling practices on farm.
Forage Analysis Assurance Group
Founded in 2000, FAA Group member laboratories in UK and Ireland, collectively analyse around 70,000 samples of grass, maize and whole cereal silage annually.
The monthly Proficiency Testing (PT) Scheme, based on supplied standard samples, enables each member laboratory to ensure the conformity of their instruments and testing processes.
Members include Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), FBA, Aurivo, Bandon Co-op, Dairygold and FarmLab.
