Patience can lead to amazing results!

Many farms in the south west will be turning their attention to their maize crops in the coming weeks. Maize is a valuable crop, in more ways than one: a useful source of feed for the winter and beyond, but also quite expensive to grow and harvest. This combination of factors makes it very rewarding to try and achieve the best possible use of this crop.

Timing the harvest is a crucial decision, and before that choice is made and the contractor booked, it is essential to undertake some quick tests of the grass silage beforehand and to consider what role the maize is going to play in the feed ration. If the silage is on the dry side, the maize can be harvested sooner, if the silage is wet, then drier, later-harvested maize would be best.

The ripeness of the crop also needs to be checked carefully. Some of these stay-green varieties actually stay green for too long, so you dont want to harvest the maize too early. A few mistakes were made last year when the cob was ready and the crop harvested, yet the plant itself was still too green. At the same time it can be disastrous to wait too long and the crop becomes sodden by autumn rain, so day-by-day vigilance is the watchword. The ideal time is when the crop is between 32% to 35% dry matter and being slightly too late, is better than harvesting slightly too early.

Optimising the feeding potential of the forage component in the diet is crucial in terms of margin/litre. Therefore Cornwall Farmers advise the use DoubleAction Ecocorn on your maize silage, which has been shown to make a real, consistent and economic contribution to achieving this especially with the high yielding cow.

DoubleAction Ecocorn is a combination of an inoculant to efficiently control the initial fermentation and an acid to restrict the potential for aerobic spoilage and dry matter loss during feedout. Both of these aspects contribute to more digestible DM being available to the cow and improvements of around 1.8 litres/cow/day have been obtained from MTD/1 treated silages

Once harvested, the temptation is always there to give the herd immediate access to the maize clamp, yet the fact is the optimum period of fermentation in terms of starch digestibility is actually no less than four months. That timescale is impractical for many, though some farms are now putting away sufficient maize in the autumn to last through to next years spring.

Opening the clamp too early also causes further problems by letting air into the pit so the rest of the maize harvest is not as good as it could be. Keeping the clamp closed for a month allows the additive to work, aids fermentation throughout the whole pit and it will keep better over the winter.

For most farms, a minimum fermentation period of 30 days will produce excellent results, particularly if the maize is clamped under Clampfilm of Clingseal products, as well as using additives to aid fermentation. Using additives will also reduce any secondary fermentation, which helps keep the maize a lot better for next spring and summer 2012, if that is the aim.

Last year crops were slow to perform in the clamp and an additive would speed that up to get a quicker fermentation and make it more suitable for use earlier on, but still no sooner than 30 days would be the best advice.

If the maize is fed too early, the milk will improve for the first four days but by day five the yield drops to below where it was before, causing acidosis because it is still fermenting and not completely made.

Therefore wait for the crop to ripen, wait for the clamp to ferment and then watch the cows perform.

For further information please contact Cornwall Farmers nutritional specialists by calling Matthew Jenkin on 07770 598296, David Passmore on 07901 854463, Blair Vanstone on 07799 773990, Philippa Lohmeyer on 07976 468563 or Daniel Collins on 07796 300447.