- The harvest began and ended faster practically all over the country than in previous years. Will it be the same with the corn harvest?
- When should you start harvesting corn for silage?
Drought will accelerate the silage harvest
Typically, the harvest time for silage corn falls on the first half of September or the end of August. Much depends on the region, but also on the variety itself. Above all, weather conditions are crucial. Calendar dates are indicative only. There have been years when the silage corn harvest was very advanced in mid-August. Unfortunately, this is usually the result of drought.
In the regions most affected by drought, some farmers will be forced to harvest earlier this year. It is already said that in regions where there is a water shortage, silage harvesting will have to start at the end of next week. Where plants dry before your eyes, rain will no longer help. Unfortunately, such silage will often be of poor quality, especially with a very low cob share. And in places where water shortages were very high, plants in extreme conditions did not even develop cobs. And if a cob did appear, it was not seeded due to the lack of rainfall around flowering. Unfortunately, there are many such plantations. Additionally, in locations where water deficits have been observed to a greater or lesser extent from the beginning of the vegetation period, the plants are short, have a small volume, and therefore do not offer the appropriate mass.
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Will drought reduce corn yield?
When to mow corn for silage?
As with everything, in the case of harvesting silage corn, the harvest date should not be too early or too late. In both cases, we are dealing with certain negative consequences.
If we start harvesting too early, we will certainly obtain less starch. And starch is energy. So what is the effect? Well, silage offers less energy, and therefore this energy becomes more expensive. We have less of it for cattle at the same silage price. At the same time, if the plants are too green, they will release a lot of sap.
Problems also arise from the delay in harvesting, because then the pile of prepared material is not pressed well. Due to the high percentage of dry matter, it is difficult to shape and compact the mown material properly, and the grains themselves are not as well cut as in the case of harvesting at the optimal time. It should be remembered that this cutting of the grain is crucial in the preparation of corn silage. Moreover, when harvested late, the digestibility of mown plants – i.e. cut stems and leaves – deteriorates.
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Winter oats: when and how to sow?
The best time to harvest corn for silage is during the waxy and waxy-vitreous phase. The dry matter content should be approximately 30 – 35 percent (usually this is the dry matter content obtained in this phase). At the same time, we have the optimal starch content, and at the same time the grain is relatively easy to cut (at an early harvest, instead of cutting, the grain is crushed, while at a late harvest, cutting is very difficult). We then obtain all the key silage parameters. But these are optimal conditions. If the corn is dry due to drought, it will reach this stage much faster than plants well supplied with water. Moreover, it may happen that as a result of the disturbance, we will observe single grains on the cob that are not yet ready to be prepared for silage, and the stems or leaves themselves will be very dry. Then you should also mow, because – as we have already mentioned – the dried vegetative parts of the plant lose their digestibility over time, and such silage is reluctantly consumed by animals. Additionally, material that is too dry, resembling sawdust rather than chaff, is much more susceptible to heating up (due to the oxygen that remains in the pile due to poor compaction).
In practice, we can check whether the corn is ready for harvest by checking the height of the milk line – it should be at the height of about 1/3 of the kernel (looking from the top). You can also check the dry matter content by drying the chaff, but for this you need to have equipment that will precisely determine the dry matter content.
