Step 1. Planning

The high energy and starch content of forage maize make it a highly valuable silage. But maize is also one of your riskiest forages in terms of preserving it.

With its two opponents knocking on the door of: (1) aerobic spoilage (heating) caused by yeasts and moulds in the presence of air; and (2) risks to fermentation, especially when making greener, moister maize silage – it only takes one slip of management to significantly reduce the feed quality of your maize silage, or the tonnes of dry matter (DM) in your maize silage clamp.
 
Indeed, results from two years of surveys of UK dairy farms suggest there is huge scope for improving how maize silage is made.

For example, while good consolidation and tight sealing were the most common methods used to manage aerobic spoilage (heating) – named by 60% and 77% of respondents respectively in the 2017 survey – this still left a large percentage of producers who weren’t using these important techniques to the full.

When planning your maize harvest, make sure you take the importance of good preservation into account, and that your contractor is lined up for your anticipated harvest date and has the appropriate additive.

If growing modern, ‘stay green’ varieties, they should not have died off (or dried off) by the time they are harvested.

TOP TIP: Use effective planning to achieve a more efficient maize harvest and to ensure your maize silage clamp is in good shape well ahead of harvest, not after the maize is ready to be cut.

Want to learn more about maize silage? Take a look at the next steps...