If you pair a two-pronged planting season with the heat in late September, you get a variable corn silage crop, says dairy nutritionist Drew Johnson.
Johnson works out of Cashton and serves the surrounding counties in Western Wisconsin. He says the No. 1 topic he’s discussing with his dairy farm clients is forage quality. Johnson advises making some adjustments to get the most out of this year’s corn silage crop.
This harvest season, Johnson has noticed that the readiness of the corn for silage was variable by field, so variable, that it may depend on which direction the field was facing. He says one of his clients had corn drop 2 percentage points of moisture per day on a south-facing slope. Meanwhile, he says the rest of the corn was still green at the time.
“Forage quality is going to be suspect,” Johnson tells Mid-West Farm Report. He points to the spring and early summer moisture as the culprit for fungal pressure and low fiber digestibility.
Johnson says following forage testing, dairy farmers may want to consider bringing in other commodities to maintain production goals in order to benefit from a higher milk price. He lists a few alternative ingredients as solutions: corn gluten seed, cranberry waste, beet pulp, sweet corn silage, corn for grain.
He notes that rye is a popular over-winter crop to add to the ration next summer. Johnson explains that rye has helped with the fat test in milk — a good thing this year because the price is good for butter fat. When it comes to covers, Johnson says triticale is also a good option.
