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Dry Silage Considerations

August 25, 2020 6:09 PM
Blog Post

Chopping silage during rapid drying conditions always bring up the question of “How much water do I add?” The short answer: It is practically impossible to add enough to get to your desired moisture level. 

To add one point of moisture for each ton of silage you would need to add seven gallons. For example, if the silage was 55% moisture, you would need to add 70 gallons of water per ton of silage. That would calculate out to be 16,520 gallons of water for a 9’x200’ silage bag. 

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Harvest and Storage of Weather-damaged Corn for Silage

August 18, 2020

Extreme weather events may lead to a decision to make corn silage rather than harvest corn for grain, or to harvest acres that will exceed current silage storage capacity. Before harvesting for silage, make sure you have a market for the silage or a sufficient number of livestock to feed it to. It may be difficult to harvest good quality corn silage if the crop has weather damage and the economic value of the silage will likely be lower than silage from non-damaged fields.

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Silage Harvest of Drought-Stressed and Severely Lodged Corn

August 18, 2020
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The decision to chop corn for silage should be made when there is no further potential to increase grain dry matter and whole plant moisture is in the proper range for the storage structure. The proper harvest moisture content is the same for drought stressed and normal corn. Recommended whole plant moisture contents are 65-70% in horizontal silos (trenches and bunkers), 60-70% for bags, 60-65% for upright stave silos, and 50-60% for upright oxygen limiting silos.

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Take Precautions When Feeding Drought-Damaged Corn as Silage

July 24, 2012

When a corn plant is stunted, or not growing normally, nitrates can build up in the plant. Typically nitrogen that is taken up by the corn plant is converted to amino acids — the building blocks of protein — but in the stressed plant this conversion does not occur. And that's why producers need to know how to handle and feed drought-damaged corn in silage form, according to Steve Ensley of Iowa State University's Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine (VDPAM) department.

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Rainfall has Affected Hay and Hay-Crop Silage Harvest

June 10, 2008

By Stephen K. Barnhart, Department of Agronomy

Hay is an agricultural product that varies greatly in nutritional quality. The ‘hay market’ frequently uses descriptive terms like ‘dairy quality,, ‘beef-cow quality’ or more quantitative terms like ‘premium,’ ‘good’, and ‘fair’; which have some forage testing guidelines to place hay lots in these categories.

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