Maize Silage

newholland

May seem like silly questions but how would one go about sowing maize?
Would it grow in mayo?
How do you harvest it?
How many tonnes per arce average?
Is it good for feeding cattle?
How do you store it?
How do you dry it?

Any other advice. Would it be cheaper than buying ration?

nilhg

newholland wrote: »

May seem like silly questions but how would one go about sowing maize?
Would it grow in mayo?
How do you harvest it?
How many tonnes per arce average?
Is it good for feeding cattle?
How do you store it?
How do you dry it?

Any other advice. Would it be cheaper than buying ration?

To sow you plough, till and sow same as for any other arable crop, the sower is a specialist precision seeder which usually has the ability to precision place up to 150kg/ha of fertiliser beside the seed at sowing. Maize has quite a high fertiliser requirement so heavy doses of slurry or FYM usually go on before ploughing.

It'll grow on Mayo if the ground is good enough.

6-7 tons DM acre off a good crop on good land in a good season.

Good feed for cattle, especially cattle that need a high plane of nutrition.

You make silage from it and put it in a pit covered with plastic, harvesting is usually with a self propelled forage harvester fitted with a specialist header.

You'd still need ration, with a higher protein but much less of it.

Whether it's for you depends on your land and the availability of the machinery to do the work, getting a bit late but still time this year.

49801

surely a bit late to be thinking of sowing it for 2011?
Its a very expensive crop to grow
its clamped same as grass silage

personally belive its a gr8 job for milking cows and too much of a pain for beef.
Have wondered recently could you tip an artic of say brewers grains and mix it with the maize silage while its being clamped to get the CP% up. no diet feeder here to be burning diseal with

sh1tstirrer

If you are higher than 350 ft above sea level it won't do well. Costs around €600 an acre to grow.

Nutcase

Its still not to late to plant last year a neighbour planted it round 15th 16th may and he had a very good crop think it was around 35% starch too. Not sure what variety he used but was one of the early maturing varieties i think.

supermajor

49801 wrote: »

surely a bit late to be thinking of sowing it for 2011?
Its a very expensive crop to grow
its clamped same as grass silage

personally belive its a gr8 job for milking cows and too much of a pain for beef.
Have wondered recently could you tip an artic of say brewers grains and mix it with the maize silage while its being clamped to get the CP% up. no diet feeder here to be burning diseal with

I'm growing maize for the first time this year. How do you get away not using a diet feeder for feeding it?
Was looking into buying one but if ya can get away without using it do enlighten;)

We'd be feedin maize beet straw and silage too but we feed straights through the parlour so dont need diet feeder to save costs in that side, jus to mix up and feed it out.

nilhg

supermajor wrote: »

I'm growing maize for the first time this year. How do you get away not using a diet feeder for feeding it?
Was looking into buying one but if ya can get away without using it do enlighten;)

We'd be feedin maize beet straw and silage too but we feed straights through the parlour so dont need diet feeder to save costs in that side, jus to mix up and feed it out.

We (well the brother really) feed maize, silage, straw and meal with no diet feeder, cattle on slats have maize and silage or straw fed at the barrier, mixed up roughly enough with the bucket of the loadall. Cattle on straw are fed in round feeders, silage in first maize on top, they'll root to find what they want.

Meal is fed either on top of the silage or in troughs.

blue5000

49801 wrote: »

surely a bit late to be thinking of sowing it for 2011?
Its a very expensive crop to grow
its clamped same as grass silage

personally belive its a gr8 job for milking cows and too much of a pain for beef.
Have wondered recently could you tip an artic of say brewers grains and mix it with the maize silage while its being clamped to get the CP% up. no diet feeder here to be burning diseal with

Ya I did it a few years back, but now the contractor uses a rake on the pit, BG needs a bucket. We spread about a bucket of BG after each load of maize in layers. Worked well and brought the protein up in the pit. Who do you get your Bg off?

supermajor

nilhg wrote: »

We (well the brother really) feed maize, silage, straw and meal with no diet feeder, cattle on slats have maize and silage or straw fed at the barrier, mixed up roughly enough with the bucket of the loadall. Cattle on straw are fed in round feeders, silage in first maize on top, they'll root to find what they want.

Meal is fed either on top of the silage or in troughs.

Ya we were thinkin of trying that for the first year and see how it goes. Main problem we were thinkin of would be that it wont be mixed enough and that they wouldnt clean it out at the feed barrier. Takin out all the tatsy bits, leavin the silage.;)
Another would be them for nosin for the beet but we could jus feed that down on top of the mixed maize/silage the moring after wen they form a sort of "trough" avoiding that. We jus about have enough head space to do that

Its a big cost talkin 20k+for the diet feeder and the runnin costs after:eek: Plus extra time

nilhg

supermajor wrote: »

Ya we were thinkin of trying that for the first year and see how it goes. Main problem we were thinkin of would be that it wont be mixed enough and that they wouldnt clean it out at the feed barrier. Takin out all the tatsy bits, leavin the silage.;)
Another would be them for nosin for the beet but we could jus feed that down on top of the mixed maize/silage the moring after wen they form a sort of "trough" avoiding that. We jus about have enough head space to do that

Its a big cost talkin 20k+for the diet feeder and the runnin costs after:eek: Plus extra time

Suppose it depends how good (or bad) your silage is.......

Hasn't been a problem for us, we have enough trough space for the meal and they clean out the silage/maize well enough, we weigh everything in to them so once you know how much to put in you don't tend to have much waste left over in the morning.

49801

blue5000 wrote: »

Ya I did it a few years back, but now the contractor uses a rake on the pit, BG needs a bucket. We spread about a bucket of BG after each load of maize in layers. Worked well and brought the protein up in the pit. Who do you get your Bg off?

never had it here. am small scale. just thinking out loud... but def think it would be a great advantage if it can be done.

supermajor wrote: »

I'm growing maize for the first time this year. How do you get away not using a diet feeder for feeding it?
Was looking into buying one but if ya can get away without using it do enlighten;)

We'd be feedin maize beet straw and silage too but we feed straights through the parlour so dont need diet feeder to save costs in that side, just to mix up and feed it out.

we were feeding finishing cattle a few years ago with 50/50 maize silage/ grass silage by volume. but we were still dragging lots of bags of meal to them as maize is such low fiber. then we just put a grab of maize at the barrier and then a grab of grass silage on top. they ate it all fairly well. next time think i'd put the required amount against the wall of the pit and give it a mix with a bucket if doing again. was using a shear grab and found it went everywhere. def a bucket job.
others on here might give better insight on the best way to feed it. I found it very difficult to get good practical advice on how to feed it at the time:(

blue5000

I feed 2 grabs of grass silage, 1 grab of maize along a feed barrier for milking cows. For young cattle 2 maize: 1 grass silage.

Maize is high in fibre, but low in all the minerals, esp Phos, and only about 8-9% CP. But the protein is a very good quality protien, high in lyseine(excuse d spelling). Feed a bit of straw along with it, I usually roll out a bale along the passage first, or you can put a bale in a ring feeder and let them have free access to it.

Its a great feed for calved cows in early spring that are out by day, in at night. Don't feed it to dry cows, unless they are v thin. Also don't feed it to in calf heifers coming up to calving, it makes them 'flag' or bag up v hard.

John_F

started growing maize 5 or 6 years ago in the open, need a k index of around 2 (180kg/ha) its a c4 plant and wont grow when soil temp is less than 10 deg, disease became an issue the 2nd year we grew it, to avoid this you should spray with punch c as late is possible (go in with a high clearance sprayer) the spray lasts 6 weeks i think, giving the plant time to fill the cob by staying green, wire worms can be an issue on ground that was in pasture, the variety is dependant on the site, youd want to be getting it in before the 2nd week of may if possible. on a trial plot avg yield in the open was 16t dm/ha but on the same ground avg yield under plastic was 19-20t dm/ha.

starch in the open around 20-24%, under plastic ~30+%. the extra cost of the plastic is taken up by the fact youve a better crop, and also that you are guaranteed a crop, it can make alot more use out of the august sunshine as its that more advanced. we grew under plastic last year and again this year, sown the 2nd week of april. Spray is applied with the plastic machine so in theory you shouldnt have to go in again, but this was a problem last year as the weather was so dry after setting that the spay wouldnt work. in the open you spray when the crop is at a certain stage (think 6 leaves for calaris)

talk to the supplier that youd be going to, if you are going to go plastic now, i think its too late, as not only will you miss the head start but unless you have soil tests done then its a guessing game, at least in the open you can top dress.

another option would be to buy it in, it doesnt work out much dearer!

as for clamping, you can put on an additive through the machine if youl be feeding out slowly such as agros corn, pioneer 11a44, or siloking. then put plenty salt on the pit and cover same as grass. for feeing out we use a bucket but i reckon if you had a shear grab or alot of tines on the tine grab it would do, esp if the passage is near. we bought a tub mixer the end of 09 and the best purchase made in a long time, no trouble calving, cows happier, better condition, all these far out weight the running cost and even the initial outlay in my view. . . as long as you have the diet 100%. Fingers getting sore now :cool:

supermajor

nilhg wrote: »

Suppose it depends how good (or bad) your silage is.......

Hasn't been a problem for us, we have enough trough space for the meal and they clean out the silage/maize well enough, we weigh everything in to them so once you know how much to put in you don't tend to have much waste left over in the morning.

Ya them scales are a good idea. Would suit our loadall well. I think i might start a new thread and see if i get any other relpies think i'm after hi- jackin this thread.

Sorry new holland only new to this:)