Corn Silage: Key Characteristics – Nutritional Value & Tonnage
Through my years in the seed industry, I have observed that designating a hybrid as a ‘silage’ hybrid often was a way of moving inventory of hybrids with any of the following characteristics: tall plant type, questionable standability or poor dry-down. Until the last 15 years or so, what the animal got out of the feed was secondary to tonnage. Improved testing procedures and calculation tools (Milk 2006) have rightly focused attention on the nutritional value of corn silage, not solely tonnage.
There are two components of corn silage: grain and fodder. For years the seed corn industry focused on test weight and standability, both very important qualities for the commercial grain farmer; however, characteristics that generally make grain and fodder harder for livestock to digest.
Floury Grains = More Available Energy
Masters Choice, a small Illinois seed corn company, didn’t follow the crowd, but focused on selecting hybrids for grain digestibility and fodder digestibility. Masters Choice floury grain has up to 15% more available energy than standard corn hybrids due to its higher digestibility. A slower rate of passage is another contributing factor to the higher digestibility of Masters Choice floury grain, as it stays in the rumen up to twice as long as harder, slicker industry hybrids, even when both are ground to a fine dust. Another benefit of floury grain is the increased microbial yield being associated with floury corn hybrids. These microbial proteins greatly contribute to milk production on dairy operations.
The Masters Choice lineup is filled with hybrids that feature floury digestible grain along with high fiber digestibility for total plant digestion in ruminant animals. These hybrids are selected specifically for use on livestock farms and are well known as industry leaders in corn silage. Following is a comparison of a top Masters Choice hybrid with a top competitor in a corn silage trial conducted in SW Ohio in 2016.
Economic Benefits
This comparison is based on data from a 2016 Silage Plot in SW Ohio. MC6580 (115 day) represents the floury grain and digestible fiber focus of Masters Choice’s hybrid development for several decades together with sound agronomics. While overall plot yields were depressed by lack of moisture, MC6580 out-paced the competitive check (widely used silage hybrid in the area) by .43 Tons per acre. Silage value was adjusted (based on $16.50 milk) to account for the additional 61 pounds of milk per ton produced by the Masters Choice. MC6580 had 4% more starch (suggesting a higher percentage of grain in the silage) and .52% less lignin. The dNDF30 was 59.1 on the Masters Choice (3.5% higher than check). These and other nutritional data point to the economic benefits of Masters Choice corn hybrids for silage.
For more information about Masters Choice seed corn products click on the provided links. For an individual consultation about how to make these products work on your farm, email support@dairy4profit.com, call (888) 249-SEED or visit the DEALER page on our website www.fowlerseed.com/dealers to contact a dealer in your area.
