In this article, I will discuss some options that can be put into practice right away, as well as some that producers may want to take a serious look at in the years to come.
Simply chop more corn silage than ever before
It seems like a very basic idea because it is. Chopping more corn silage this fall simply makes sense. On many farms, reserves are currently low to non-existent.
I have been fielding some calls over the past month from producers who were going to run out of corn silage four to six weeks prior to being able to harvest this year’s crop, wondering what the best solutions are as a stopgap until 2013 harvest gets rolling.
The options are very limited, and in each of these conversations, the producers made reference to the fact that they never want to have to do this again.
It is important to do everything you can to have ample corn silage around for many reasons. The biggest of these are ration consistency and cost.
Switching from a diet that is 50 percent or more of the forage component being corn silage to zero and then back up after harvest can wreak havoc on rumen health in your herd.
Being able to continually feed a consistent ration in terms of forage levels and percentages will help maintain production, components and breeding.
Every time a major ration change happens, it takes two weeks for the rumen to fully adapt. If we have to make two major changes in a six-week period, cows may not fully settle in for quite a while.
On the ration-cost front, corn silage is the most economical source of energy in our rations, which is why we grow it in the first place. Not being able to feed to the desired level in the ration will almost certainly increase ration costs, as other energy sources will have to be found and added to make up for the lack of corn silage.
With the recent commodity market downturn (Figure 1), any extra acres of corn planted on dairy operations are worth much less to sell as dry corn at the elevator.
Looking at the bids for my local elevator in central Ontario right now, if I wanted to sell this fall’s crop I would be offered $3.90 per bushel, close to half of what it was only a year ago.
To date, there has not been a downward adjustment in milk price to reflect the falling values of commodities.
This means that if putting corn silage through a cow and selling the milk made sense a year ago, it makes twice as much sense now.
Take your best corn that you had hoped to sell for well over $200 per tonne that is now worth $150 per tonne, and put it in the bunk, bag or silo. Chopping your very best fields allow you to maximize forage levels in your ration, reducing purchased feed costs and improving the bottom line.
This fall, make sure the bunkers are as full as you can get them while still making great feed safely. Make an extra bag, or if you have tower silos, maybe this is the year to put up a bag as added inventory.
Even if you don’t need all of it in the next 12 months, it will give you the ability to feed fermented feed while next year’s corn silage ferments.
Set your alfalfa fields up for a great first cut in 2014
This was discussed in-depth in the June 11, 2013 issue of Progressive Dairyman and is a critical factor to keeping forage inventories high.
This fall, ensure that you give your alfalfa fields the required 45 days before a killing frost to simply grow and replenish their root reserves prior to winter. Next year’s first-cut yields will thank you for it.
Alfalfa also has a very high need for potassium. The price of potash has come down substantially over the past year, and recent indications would be that it could drop quite a bit more yet.
With potash becoming a buying opportunity at a reasonable price, now is a great time to get some fall fertiliser out.
This fertilization will help improve K levels in the soil as well as greatly aid in plant health going into winter. There is lots of evidence that boron application can be very beneficial both in season as well as in the fall to aid in plant health and subsequent yield. Both of these critical nutrients will help reduce winterkill.
Consider growing forages after summer-harvested crops
The 2012 drought forced many producers to look for ways to simply make more feed somehow, and many landed on planting a second crop into the stubble of a summer-harvested crop such as wheat or barley.
At the time, producers weren’t quite sure how it was going to work out, but having seen the results on many operations, I would say it was a success.
Even in a year where drought is not a problem, we may want to consider forage cover crops as a realistic option to produce more feed from the acres we have available to us.
Why simply let that wheat stubble sit fallow for three months after harvest when we could be putting in a crop to capture sunlight and turn it into feed for our herds?
While we may not always want to add this to the milking cow ration, these feeds can be fantastic forages for heifers.
Many options exist in the marketplace that can produce high volumes of good-quality feed. Oats, peas, barley, triticale either on their own or in combination as well as some species of ryegrass have proven to be very popular the past couple of years.
Joel Bagg and Peter Johnson of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food have put together some great resources on summer-seeded forages.
I highly recommend checking them out for next year’s summer-harvested stubble. Visit www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/field/forages.html and www.FieldCropNews.com to find these resources.
Make what you can when you can
In the end, it all comes down to how we are most profitable on every acre of land that we crop and with every kilo of quota that we have to ship.
Economics right now dictate that feeding high-forage rations to our dairy herds allows us to maximize profitability. Without forages on hand to feed, maximizing forage intake cannot be achieved.
Make sure this fall you have the bunks, bags and silos full, with a little extra, before deciding to sell any crops off the farm. PD
- Robert Larmer
- DuPont Pioneer
