Exploiting home-grown energy
12 February 2008 | Mark Britton
Forage maize offers dairy farmers a huge opportunity for home-grown energy. Furthermore, introducing a high yielding variety such as NK Bull can improve crop productivity by up to 10%, visitors were told at an NK / Keenan maize farm workshop held at Lowdy Hall Farm, Ullingswick, near Hereford in December.
“Farmers in this region can achieve freshweight maize yields of 18t/acre at 33%DM and 30% starch costing in the order of £285/acre to grow,” explained Francis Dunne of Kington-based Field Options. “However, if they select certain varieties, such as NK Bull with the potential to produce an extra 10% yield or 1.8t/acre that yield would be worth £32.40 in terms of energy value.”
NK’s Nigel Padbury allayed farmers’ fears when it came to choosing a maize variety from the NIAB’s 2008 Forage Maize Descriptive List, comprising a myriad of more than 80 varieties. “Search out variety characteristics depending on whether you are seeking yield or quality,” he said. “If you rely on maize to deliver a high proportion of your forage needs, aim for high digestible yield and focus on energy from high volumes of digestible dry matter. Alternatively, where grass forms the greatest proportion of forage fed, then maize represents a supplementary boost so aim for a high starch yield, and focus on energy from high volumes of high starch content.”
Host farmer, James Meredith reported maize to make up 75% of the forage component of the TMR diet fed to his 170-cow Holstein herd, currently yielding close on a 9,000 litre average, at 4.1% butterfat and 3.13% protein. “We have been growing forage maize for 20 years simply because it helps us to operate a simple, efficient and profitable system. Maize is a cost-effective forage; it is relatively high in energy and contains lots of starch. What’s more, we believe that maize helps to improve dry matter intakes, and it provides that something extra in the diet,” he said.
“In view of the fact we are relying on maize to deliver such a high proportion of our forage requirements, we carefully select varieties which have both high digestible yield and volumes of digestible dry matter. This year we were attracted to NK Bull because on paper it had outyielded all of its contenders,” he explained. “We planted the variety alongside Nescio and observed NK Bull grew taller, it had more and bigger cobs and equally if not more important, the crop was consistent throughout, it appeared unaffected by different soil types and field conditions.”
Keenan Ruman’s consultant nutritionist, Hefin Richards commented: “Maize offers a huge opportunity to grow energy on the farm, at a time when wheat prices continue to remain at unprecedented levels. Therefore growers should exploit the latest technology in terms of plant breeding, crop management and nutrition if they are to maximise returns.
“Feeding a mixture of forages enables livestock producers to secure a degree of insurance against a single poor crop, and provided the ration is correctly balanced and structured, mixed forage diets will stimulate intakes and rumen function.”
More Open Days are planned for 2008 - the location and dates will be published on this website.
