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Silage Chopping photos

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BRG

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The last few days we chopped our corn for silage. It was by far the best crop we have ever had. The silage corn averaged 14.5 ton/acre! When we planted it we hoped we would get close to 8, never did we dream it would do this. It was dam tough to keep up on the pile packing and we used 2 different packing tractors. Lots of corn in it as well. Looks like great feed. It was fun getting it put up.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151904494548970.1073741835.145126118969&type=1
 
If your crop is indicative of what's in the fields in general, then there is still a lot of downside potential for price before spring, I'd say.

Watch out grain growers... :?
 
burnt said:
If your crop is indicative of what's in the fields in general, then there is still a lot of downside potential for price before spring, I'd say.

Watch out grain growers... :?
Click to expand...


Rain is the key word. His part of the country had unheard of amounts of rain during the summer growing season. I set in the heart of the corn production in this country. I have not had A 1/10 of an inch rain since the 18th of July. The combined total for August and September would be around 1/2 inch. That does not make for record yields. The folks in Iowa have been just as dry so that covers the no.1&2 corn producing states. We will have a decent corn crop but not a bin buster. I am glad the people in BRG's area are having a good crop for a change!
 
mwj said:
burnt said:
If your crop is indicative of what's in the fields in general, then there is still a lot of downside potential for price before spring, I'd say.

Watch out grain growers... :?
Click to expand...


Rain is the key word. His part of the country had unheard of amounts of rain during the summer growing season. I set in the heart of the corn production in this country. I have not had A 1/10 of an inch rain since the 18th of July. The combined total for August and September would be around 1/2 inch. That does not make for record yields. The folks in Iowa have been just as dry so that covers the no.1&2 corn producing states. We will have a decent corn crop but not a bin buster. I am glad the people in BRG's area are having a good crop for a change!
Click to expand...

I sure don't know much about growing corn but one thing I did learn early-on is that the difference between timely rainfall and sporadic rainfall will mean a heck of a difference in the final crop.

Checked out the pics! Nice job. :D

BTW, what's considered a good crop of corn when harvested for grain?
 
Right where we live is real sandy and hardly any top soil. 80 bushel corn is pretty darn good here. You get east of us 10 miles and you can see 120 bushel corn on a good year.
 
We chopped and bagged silage on Sept 14. The corn we chopped averaged 190 bu. I have never seen corn before that you had to look up to see the ears. We chopped 20 acres and put up 2 200 x 9 ft bags . There is supposed to be 250 tons in each bag. I wish I had taken pictures to show how tall the corn was.
 
Do you guys leave the bales up or do you take them away after you are done packing? Are they lined with plastic?

I used bales like that for the first time this year and I was told to take them away after a few days so the silage doesn't ruin the bales. I didn't line them with plastic. I am giving it a few days to ferment and stick together and then I am planning on taking the bales away, for now...

Just curious if the moisture from the silage will seep into and ruin the bales, if anybody has any experience they would like to share. I really don't want to ruin the bales!
 
Howdy1 said:
Do you guys leave the bales up or do you take them away after you are done packing? Are they lined with plastic?

I used bales like that for the first time this year and I was told to take them away after a few days so the silage doesn't ruin the bales. I didn't line them with plastic. I am giving it a few days to ferment and stick together and then I am planning on taking the bales away, for now...

Just curious if the moisture from the silage will seep into and ruin the bales, if anybody has any experience they would like to share. I really don't want to ruin the bales!
Click to expand...

We don't line the bales, and we leave them there until the silage is gone. It doesn't ruin the bales, but it does make the a little black, but we grind them up with the rest of the grinding hay. The bales are weed bales that we cut out of our feedlots, so they would be ground anyway. This way the nutrients in the juices that seep out are in the hay, instead leaking out and onto the ground.
 
jkvikefan said:
We chopped and bagged silage on Sept 14. The corn we chopped averaged 190 bu. I have never seen corn before that you had to look up to see the ears. We chopped 20 acres and put up 2 200 x 9 ft bags . There is supposed to be 250 tons in each bag. I wish I had taken pictures to show how tall the corn was.
Click to expand...

It's good to hear numbers like that! Your comment about looking up to the ears would describe our corn as well this year - just amazing for height.

Not sure it will necessarily translate into BPA though, since we had a very cool summer. I'd jump at 190 bu.!!

The past few weeks has made a big difference though, with above normal temps bringing everything closer to a normal stage of maturity.
 
BRG said:
Howdy1 said:
Do you guys leave the bales up or do you take them away after you are done packing? Are they lined with plastic?

I used bales like that for the first time this year and I was told to take them away after a few days so the silage doesn't ruin the bales. I didn't line them with plastic. I am giving it a few days to ferment and stick together and then I am planning on taking the bales away, for now...

Just curious if the moisture from the silage will seep into and ruin the bales, if anybody has any experience they would like to share. I really don't want to ruin the bales!
Click to expand...

We don't line the bales, and we leave them there until the silage is gone. It doesn't ruin the bales, but it does make the a little black, but we grind them up with the rest of the grinding hay. The bales are weed bales that we cut out of our feedlots, so they would be ground anyway. This way the nutrients in the juices that seep out are in the hay, instead leaking out and onto the ground.
Click to expand...

I am planning to use soybean straw bales to contain our stover pile this fall. After the corn in shelled we are planning to cut the stalks with the forage harvester and blow them into a pile/bunker style for cow feed.

In other years, there was enough moisture and starch left in the stalks to make it ferment and ensile.

We'll see how it goes this year. At worst, we end up with a pile of bedding!
 
Even if it is to dry to do that, as long as it doesn't mold, it will make good feed. You can mix it in with silage or other grinding hay. Should work.

We are going to combine around 50 acres corn to feed to steers. But we will then go out there and bale the stalks and then grind and mix with other grinding hay. Stalks make pretty good feed. It will all be used in the feedlot.
 
BRG said:
Right where we live is real sandy and hardly any top soil. 80 bushel corn is pretty darn good here. You get east of us 10 miles and you can see 120 bushel corn on a good year.
Click to expand...

In 2007 I planted corn for the first time. Everything fell right in place, especially with the rainfall and I produced 8,500 kilos/hectar which was one of the best production levels for the area I was told.

Even had folks from one of the government agricultural offices in Barcelona come down to photograph the crop.

If my calcs are right, that crop produced 135 bushels per acre....56 pounds per bushel, 2.2 pounds per kilo, 2.47 acres per hectar. The average for this area seems to run 4500 - 5000 kilos per hectar or about 75 bushels per acre.

2008 was a decent year though we had a lot less rainfall. I chopped and fed my corn crop to my cattle that year and haven't planted corn since because rainfall has been so tricky. I've had better luck planting grain sorghum at the ranch and buying corn during the harvest.
 

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