As more farms take advantage of winter forage yield and quality, the season length for corn gets squeezed. For many farms, BMR corn available today has difficulty fitting in the shorter rotations. Thus, the major increase in interest in getting the BMR advantage by planting sorghum species with their shorter season and potentially wider harvest window. The other reason farms are adding BMR sorghum to the rotation, is that the forage is perfect for optimum growth of heifers and maintaining dry cows in good but not excessive condition. This is often at a much lower cost than growing corn silage.
Tom
May 2018 Getting Late
This season for the Northeast and Northcentral has one of the latest dates to start planting corn. Planting earlier would have made a muddy mess of the field, severely restricting yields all season. The cold and wet would probably have decimated the stand. So we waited and are now full-tilt planting corn. It is mid -May, shouldn’t we be worried about the hay crop as we are usually starting mowing about now. The good news is that while the corn is going in late, the hay crop is also one of the latest I have seen in many years. Depending on the haycrop makeup, you may still have some room between planting corn and cutting haylage.
April 2018 Managing a Cold Spring
Don’t panic. Spring and summer will arrive. After this warm burst, the weather is forecasted to be below normal temperature through May. Except around the great lakes region, the summer is predicted to be above normal, especially in the center of the country. The great lakes and southeast is slated to be slightly wetter than normal. We have had this weather multiple years before and survived. Learning from those years, there are a few key steps to take and some to avoid.
March 2018 Maximize Protein From Winter Forage & Grass
Each year more farms are adding winter forage, especially triticale, to their crop toolbox. The high yields and very high-quality forage quality are a real bright spot in this gloomy economic condition on many dairy farms. High yield of high quality is not something you buy, but rather through the application of management. Research, much supported by NY Farm Viability, over the past 18 years (and still on-going) shows that fall and spring nitrogen plus sulfur are critical. The key question: when and how much are enough?
February 2018 Back to Basics
The squeeze on dairy profitability has been getting tighter and the length of this downturn is exhausting both the financial and emotional state of many farms. “What can I do?” is a common question. A key I have seen in my 40+ years in the industry is that basics are the foundation of the farm profit. In spite of the technological advances in computers, GMO’s. drones, etc, the basics mattered yesterday and they still do today. Highly digestible alfalfa is not a help if you have not soil tested all the fields you work, nor applied any lime in several years.
December 2017 Corn Varieties
It is that time of year again where we peruse corn seed catalogs, attempting to pick out the best varieties for your farm. They all look perfect; but are they.
As we are growing dairy forage, quality not just yield, needs to be considered. The fiber portion makes up half of the dry matter so a slight change in digestibility can have a significant impact on potential milk production. The other factor to consider is the percentage of the total yield that is starch. You need to be cautious with the starch number because a very hard starch will look good on paper but not milk as well even with processing and long fermentation times. A softer kernel will process easier and give more energy to the cow and not to the birds picking at the manure. With milk price down, farmers are grumbling about high seed cost, but in the big picture it usually is a small part of the whole corn silage yield component.
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October 2017 Optimize forage production
At this time of year there is a step you can take to optimize the forage production system for your farm. It is a step livestock farmers, especially dairy, can really benefit. We are talking of analysis of what you have to work with. Dairy farmers wouldn’t think of feeding a forage without knowing the nutrients it contains. Yet many forget; don’t have time; don’t get around; to test their soil to see what it contains. An ancient example is that of a wooden rain barrel. You can only fill it as full as the shortest stave. In spite of computer analysis, drone scouting, instant communication, the rain barrel example still holds true – and is ignored. We will pay over $200 for a bag of seed that barely covers 2 acres, but not take a $15 soil test that optimizes the growth of that $200/bag of seed. Traditional or organic, there are basic physical and chemical limitations to yield from your fields. Suboptimal protein or energy will limit milk production. Suboptimal fertilizer nutrients will limit yield. Conversely, one at a high or excess level will limit profitability if you put on more than is needed. It can even create shortages of other nutrients.
September 2017 Wet Forage Harvest
Three Critical Concerns This Fall Harvest
1, What You Drive In The Field:
The first concern is the wetter than normal soils across much of the northeast, and upper Midwest. That is BEFORE any hurricanes make it this way to dump on us. The naturally occurring Atlantic Multidecadal oscillation has switched to warm which will generate more powerful hurricanes until it goes cool again. Thus, the chances are greater one will wander over us to dump even more water. WET SOILS HAVE A VERY HIGH POTENTIAL FOR PERMANENT YIELD-LIMITING COMPACTION.
August 2017 End of Season Management
Our weather is continuing average – last year was hot with no rain, this year it is cool with record rainfall. The messed up growing season is finally coming to an end, but it is not over yet. The hurricane season is still cranking and the east coast water is warm which supports them coming up the coast. That could really make a mess. The second issue is successfully harvesting the crops we have out in what are still wet soils (September is forecasted to be cool and wetter than normal – not what we need!)
The corn crop is problematic on two fronts. First, because of the high soil moisture during the vegetative stage, the digestibility of the fiber will be lower than normal. Secondly, many fields are like the photo at right, with extreme variability of maturity and yields as you go across the field. Harvest decisions will be a mix of the science of farming and the art of farming as you make a judgement decision of when to start chopping particular fields.
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July 2017 Late Forage
Another season and another year of extremes. It started raining in early May and has not let up much. As you go from New England to western New York, and continue on into Michigan, Wisconsin and the edge of Minnesota, it just gets wetter and wetter. Well drained soils have faired ok, but anything less than that has more ducks than crops in it. Corn is still waiting to be planted and not all the haycrop has been harvested (mostly firewood digestibility now). The cold nights of May continued into June. I didn’t start planting my sorghum trials until after June 12. (For the climate change crowd, summertime maximum temperatures have been declining in from Minnesota to Maine for the past 80 years). When temperatures drop below 50, even corn will reduce growth for the next couple of days, based on research at the University of Guelph.
For unplanted ground we will cover multiple options. Are these perfect crops? NO! Don’t expect 100% yields from 50% of the season. These crops are not magic. They can give you highly digestible forage in the much abbreviated growing season.