Ensiling Wet Corn Silage

The discussions on corn silage maturity have centered on monitoring dry matter content to time harvest thus far. The golden rule is to assess whole plant moisture content and harvest at the 65-70% range.

However, what should be done if corn silage is harvested too wet? ( some farmers are worried about a wet fall and will harvest silage wetter than they would like).

Wet corn silage is more likely to undergo extensive fermentation and have high levels of acetic acid (which can reduce intake).

Two recommendations stand out:

• Increasing length of cut for wet silage to maintain effective fiber (especially important in higher corn silage diets)
• Inoculate with homolactic lactic acid bacteria (LAB)

In general immature corn does not need inoculation to ferment, but the idea is to populate the silage with lactic acid producing bacteria to encourage more lactic (vs acetic) acid production. Also, should corn get frosted hard, natural populations of lactic acid bacteria will be reduced, and need to be supplemented.

A couple articles on this:

Michigan state
Kansas State (Bolson)

Corn Manturing Slowly

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Dale Dewing 9/1/2009

Corn is manturing slowly this year. I was out looking over fields in the Delhi area today. Even the earliest planted corn was still only in the milk stage, the kernals would still squirt when you pressed them with a fingernail. The hill top corn was only at the blister stage (picture at right). Let's all pray for more heat.

Tom Kilcer of Advanced Ag Systems (click for more info) included this chart in his August 2009 Crop and Soil Newsletter.

If your corn is currently at:

Full Dent Stage: 1 week – 10 days away from ¼ milk line

Early Dent Stage: 2 weeks to ¼ milk line

Late Milk Stage: 2 ½ weeks to ¼ milk line (doesn’t squirt, but does not have much dent.)

Early Milk Stage: 3 weeks to ¼ milk line (squirts when the kernel is pressed.)

Blister Stage: 25 days to ¼ milk line

Just tasseled: 40 days minimum to ¼ milk line Wait for a frost to dry it somewhat before chopping.

Posted by Dale Dewing at 3:56 PM

Yellow Corn Now Wet Silage

The recent trade publications are reminding us what a poor growing season we have had for corn. Dr. Bill Cox is is quoted in American Agriculturist that by the end of July the northern New York growing- degree were down 16%. We might well be dealing with a lot of immature corn this year. Cornell studies suggest that maximum milk is achieved if corn is harvested at 32%-35% dry mater.
Some tips to increase dry matter in corn this year: Chop high, Chop in the afternoon after the dew is off.
Other ideas for dealing with imature corn or frosted corn can be found on the Vermont University website.

Click here to see the Vermont article

More Articles:
Iowa State Article
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture
Michigan State Article