WATERTOWN, Wis. — Optimizing the production of corn silage is important for dairymen due to the significant investment they make in the feed for their cows’ rations.

“A dairy farm of 500 cows will invest about $250,000 in corn silage by the time the silage is chopped, harvested and sealed under plastic,” said John Goeser, animal nutrition, research and innovation director at Rock River Laboratory Inc.

“For silage quality, we’re not only looking at fiber, but also starch because 70% of the energy value of corn silage is attributed to digestible fiber and starch,” said Goeser during a Hoard’s Dairyman webinar.

“We need to be aggressive this year because last year silage was a drag since the starch digestibility was hampered due to the growing conditions,” he said.

“We had pretty hot conditions coupled with rainfall through the grain filling period, so we saw starch digestibility down 5 to 7 points at harvest and it took an extra two, three or fourth months to reach the full feeding potential.”

Goeser advises dairymen to be on high alert for tar spot in cornfields.

“Work with an agronomist and walk fields, and if you start to see tar spot, you need to be ready to go for harvesting corn silage,” Goeser said.

“With corn in the $5.50 to $6.50 range, we need to think of our corn silage crop as harvesting grain, as well as forage,” he said.

As corn gets drier in the field, it will accumulate more starch.

“The optimal point is 62% to 70% moisture,” Goeser said. “Think about harvesting the corn a little on the wetter side, so you end up with a little higher quality silage.”

Historically, Goeser said, the goal for a kernel processing score was 70.

“The new KPS score is 75 to 80,” he said. “And the KPS will increase during fermentation, so you can add 5 to 10 units from the harvest score.”

Since corn silage is so valuable this year, using an inoculant is a great decision, Goeser said.

“It is an insurance policy to preserve every pound of digestible nutrient,” he said.

“One goal of the preservative is to preserve the feed as fast as possible after it is sealed in plastic,” he added. “The second goal is more stable and cleaner feed at feedlot.”

Dairymen should strive for rapid filling of their bunker silos with silage.

“If it takes you four to six weeks to make silage, that’s a long time for the pile to be open,” Goeser said. “You might consider splitting your silage into two piles so that you fill each one quicker.”

To determine the weight of the pack tractor to get the pile effectively packed, he said, for every 100 tons of silage delivered to the pile, multiply by 800.

Silage piles need to be covered as soon as possible.

“Leaving the pile open for even another day or two can have pretty detrimental effects not only on the top foot, but possible the top three to four feet,” Goeser said.

When selecting corn hybrids for 2023, the director said, look for good yielding hybrids, as well as fiber digestibility.

“Consider brown midrib corn because we see quite a bit higher fiber digestibility and also a little less starch and grain content,” he said. “But there are years when the BMR and non-BMR corn have very similar nutrient profiles because there will be interactions with the growing conditions and the seed genetics.”

Fiber digestibility positively correlates to feed conversion efficiency.

“It’s not simply the cows will eat more,” Goeser said. “It looks like they can do more with each pound of feed they consume. For a 10-unit increase in silage NDFD, there’s a 0.5 unit increase in feed conversion efficiency.”

With the growing season about two-thirds complete, Goeser said he expects corn silage harvest to be a little later this year.

“A lack of rainfall over the next few weeks will set the stage for grain fill and starch content,” he said. “I’m expecting an average to variable crop.”

For more information about Rock River Laboratory, go to www.rockriverlab.com.

Copyright © 2022 agrinews-pubs.com. All rights reserved. Published in La Salle, Illinois, USA, by Shaw Media.

Copyright © 2022 agrinews-pubs.com. All rights reserved. Published in La Salle, Illinois, USA, by Shaw Media.