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Reduction of rat damage to forage paddy rice stored as round‐baled silage by modifying the storage layout
Author(s) -
Kawamoto Hidenori,
Kimura Shoichi,
Komatsu Tokushi,
Oshibe Akinori,
Shimada Takuya
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
grassland science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.388
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1744-697X
pISSN - 1744-6961
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-697x.2009.00144.x
Subject(s) - silage , forage , environmental science , agronomy , agricultural engineering , reduction (mathematics) , zoology , mathematics , biology , engineering , geometry
We investigated a method for protecting forage paddy rice, stored as wrapped round‐baled silage, from feeding damage caused by rats. We divided 23 bales (diameter of each bale, 50 cm) into two groups. In the control layout group, the bales were placed in close proximity to each other and the top part was covered by a blue plastic sheet in order to produce a masking effect of vertically stacked bales. In the spacious layout group, the bales were placed 20–30 cm apart from each other. The percentage of bales damaged by feeding in the control layout was 80%, while that of bales damaged by feeding in the spacious layout was only 7%. The result suggested that creating open spaces between the stored bales would increase the predation hazard of rats and reduce the damage caused to the silage.