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Corn stover

B

burnt

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
Messages
6,617
Location
Mid-western Ontario
Does anyone put up corn stalks with a forage harvester or any other method for chopping it after the grain corn is harvested?

We did it once many years ago but it was a brutal job with the bent-over stalks constantly plugging the gathering chains and head of the forage harvester we had at the time.

I was wondering if a Gehl or JD head would work better with those rubber gathering belts they use.

The time we did it the stover actually ensiled and the cows ate it like silage.

Any experience out there with picking up corn stalks for silage?
 
Around here some people swath and bale the stalks after harvest. Some rake others don't, the rake stuff is really dirty. They grind it and mix with wet distillers so I guess it works ok, they keep doing it anyway.
 
I used to work at a dairy that had a John Deere flail chopper. Basically a flail mower with a spout/blower for blowing material into a silage wagon. The cut may or may not be adjustable, I'm not sure. They only used it to collect stalks for bedding.
 
I've got a gehl chopper like your talking about. I'm sure it would pick up anything that got in it's path.
 
Those flail choppers are getting hard to find, but there are still a few around. Zilly, do you know how wide they cut?

There's a Gehl 1000 harvester about an hour from here - might go take a look at it today.
 
It looks like they have a 6' cut.

Sorry, I was in a rush this morning. What I meant was, I'm not sure if you can adjust how course the end product ( silage or haylage) is. They only used it to cut bedding, so all I ever saw was a rough chop.

Here are a few used ones on tractor house:
http://www.tractorhouse.com/list/list.aspx?manu=JOHN+DEERE&mdltxt=16A

And a new one that I'm assuming Deere still makes:
http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/products/equipment/hay_and_forage_equipment/972_flail_chopper/972_flail_chopper.page
 
have an old JD flail harvestor hooked up to an old self dumping chaff wagon, worked good for green chopping and feeding daily stuff that has no fence or roadsides.

NH still build's one as well

http://agriculture.newholland.com/us/en/Products/Hay-and-Forage-Equipment/Crop-Chopper/Pages/products_overview.aspx
 
Thank you for all the ideas - they got me to looking further. This is what I came across, a wealth of information -

http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=266645&DisplayType=flat&setCookie=1

A forage harvester would likely do the best job of cutting it finer, a plus for packing the stover into a tighter pile and also for making soybean straw into a more user-friendly product. Soybean straw is single-handedly responsible for destroying more manure spreader than any other source of bedding - guess how I know!

Another problem that Gcreek won't ever have where he is! :)
 
back in my days of farming,the big balers were just coming out.my uncle bought a baler,and we bought one of those 'stackhand 10's" made by Hesston i think.

those stackers made a fair size stack,but were hard to move,without alot of waste.

remember,,they had a flail type pick-up.and in the fall i would follow the combine/no rake or mower needed/and feed the green stocks and feed straight to the cows.i would make a stack or two every evening and it was gone in the morning.

they sell those at auctions now for salvage,here in the midwest.
 
say Burnt, how is the stover thing working for you, did you find a cutter or are you using another method? are you getting some put up? an update please :)
 
The corn is still green! Won't be harvesting for at least a month.

I have been looking around at forage harvesters so I can chop the soybean straw finer for bedding, in addition to collecting the corn stalks.

Lots of them out there - it's just a matter of how much I want to spend on equipment just for an experiment. Trying to find the balance between cheap and dependable. :?

If it works then it will be money well spent. With crazy land rents, values and feed prices, we gotta figure out how to feed cows for nothing here in Ontario.

The latest cash rent story circulating is $400/ac./year. for 5 years ($2000 total). :shock: :shock: :shock: And these stories usually end up be confirmed sooner rather than later. The previous high-end deal was $1000/ac. for 3 years rent all paid up front. Makes my cows look rather . . . . . . . . . . . .

So, since I am growing a bit of corn for the grain value, I might as well try to add a bit more value to the crop by utilizing the leftovers! Regardless of what cash cropping seems to return, I still believe a mixed operation is the most sustainable. We just have to work a little harder on figuring out how it all fits together.
 
kinda sounds like the guy who stole some pig's, then stole the feed for them, and still lost money :wink:

i agree that a mixed operation is needed for sustainability, but those operations are fast disapearing :( my grandfather had cow's to utilise crop residue and land that was to rough to do much else with. also used them as his own crop insurance program. not saying that you can do it that way today but it give's something to think about.
 

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