Developing a Penetrometer-Based Mapping System for Visualizing Silage Bulk Density from the Bunker Silo Face

For silage production, high bulk density (BD) is critical to minimize aerobic deterioration facilitated by oxygen intrusion. To precisely assess packing quality for bunker silos, there is a desire to visualize the BD distribution within the silage. In this study, a penetrometer-based mapping system was developed. The data processing included filtering of the penetration friction component (PFC) out of the penetration resistance (PR), transfer of the corrected penetration resistance (PRc) to BD, incorporation of Kriged interpolation for data expansion and map generation. The experiment was conducted in a maize bunker silo (width: 8 m, middle height: 3 m). The BD distributions near the bunker silo face were represented using two map groups, one related to horizontal- and the other to vertical-density distribution patterns. We also presented a comparison between the map-based BD results and core sampling data. Agreement between the two measurement approaches (RMSE = 19.175 kg·m(-3)) demonstrates that the developed penetrometer mapping system may be beneficial for rapid assessment of aerobic deterioration potential in bunker silos.