Tag Archive for: Prairie Estates Genetics

Tips At The Planter

So many things go into making a good crop. Agriculture comes with many unknowns like the weather, environment, or other unforeseen factors. With input costs rising, it’s important that, as farmers, we do the best we can to ensure a great silage crop this fall. Although there are a lot of things we can’t control, here are a few tips to help ensure the best corn silage we can grow.

Planting requires setting goals, planning, and preparation to have a successful season.

– Don’t plant too early. I’m sure all of you have heard this before, but I can’t stress enough the issue of planting too early. Planting when the soil temperature is too cold and wet is risky. Wait until soil temperature is 50 degrees or higher at 10 AM on four consecutive mornings at 4-6-inch depth. It’s time to plant when you can spend time outside comfortably without adding extra layers. Waiting for soil temperature to reach 50 degrees can mean the difference between an awesome stand and a poor one. In years like this, spending money on replant isn’t something anyone wants to do. If corn is planted too early, cold temps may delay germination and emergence. This potentially increases the chance of damage from insects and soil-borne diseases. Just like the old-timers used to say, “if you see your corn out of the ground 7-10 days after planting, it will be the best stand yet.” Although a lot has changed over the years, some things still hold true.

-Make sure that you choose hybrids that adapt to your farm. With so many seed companies out there, it can get stressful trying to choose the best hybrids for your farm. Based on my experience with silage, choose hybrids that are consistent. How do they perform over varying soil types and different fertility programs? Are the content levels of fiber and starch consistent? What is their rate of dry down? Are the quality levels you shoot for consistent?  Remember, there are many choices and, that may not always be a good thing. Make sure to consult with your agronomist and forage manager to go over crop rotations to help ensure the best traits for what your farm needs.

-Population. Low versus high population seems to be a debate that has been going on for years, but my answer is always the same different hybrids react differently to high versus low populations. The best thing to do is to consult your seed advisor to see what populations work best for your farm. With PEG hybrids, we recommend low 30s for population. Every farm we cater to may vary some, so we look at several different factors when suggesting a population, such as soil type, previous crops, planning for a drought, and irrigated ground. All these things come into play when it comes to picking the right population, and it is important to remember a lot of people are happy to discuss what works and what doesn’t, so always reach out to your agronomist and forage manager—that is what we are here for.

-Planting depth is very important as early nodal root development supplies nutrients to plant above the ground. By reducing planting depth to less than 1.75 inches, you limit surface area to pull nutrients from the soil and to supply tissue above the ground and potentially affect yield. Ideally, keep planting depth at 1.75 – 2.25 inches. When planting in sand, you could possibly go down to 3 inches deep. Remember, corn is a grass, and even though it is resistant to most herbicides, shallow planting can possibly lead to more potential for injury at the nodal root, hurt early root development, hybrid emergence, and yield.  Make sure to check planting depths after beginning each field. Many farmers check depth at the first field and never check again, but having a consistent emergence is the key to a good stand.

It never hurts to be over-prepared for the season, so as we gear up for planting, have a checklist on hand with things necessary to reach your goals for this season. As we all know, 2020 has been a rough year, so doing everything we can to help us have a better 2021 is essential. Remember to reach out to your forage manager and anyone else on your team with any questions.

Sam Smith
PEG Forage Manager

Shrinking Margins…How Can Forages Help?

Corn and soybean cash prices are up 60% since early August. Milk prices have slipped nearly 30% since November 2020. Grain prices are expected to stay high through the 2021 harvest season. Class III milk for the next six months is expected to range from $15.39 in February to $17.39 in September. Diet inputs like soybean meal, cottonseed, distillers grains, and other commodities have also been rising. Unless dairy farmers locked in their milk and commodity prices a few months ago, they are potentially looking at tighter margins. Since we cannot control the milk and commodity prices, we can focus on what we can control: forage quality.

YIELD & FORAGE QUALITY
To maximize profitability in forage production on our dairy farms, it is important to consider quality and yield. Both are important. We have worked with many farms that have achieved top-notch quality with excellent yields year after year.

Yield
Recently, more clients have questioned whether BMR hybrids are worth the investment. BMR hybrids require more input costs, including seed cost, fertilization, and fungicides. They also prefer being on your best ground. They are more sensitive to certain pre- and post-herbicides. They tend not to handle stress as well, and even on your best ground, you are apt to sacrifice up to 30% yield drag. Rarely will BMR hybrids yield like conventional genetics, especially if you compare them to top-end elite corn hybrids. One of the producers who has worked with PEG for over 15 years, for example, had always grown part of their acres as BMR silage. After changing from BMR to PEG acres, the dairy measured a 15-18% growth in yield, and given that they plant about 500 acres of silage a year, this change results in a yearly gain of about 90 acres. If grain prices are locked for these 90 acres and growth of 60 bu beans or 220 bu corn is assumed, this change results in an extra $75,000-$100,000 in revenue for the dairy.

Quality
Secondly, we evaluate quality and its role in developing a diet. Four main factors go into producing quality corn silage: Starch Content, Starch Digestibility, Lower Fiber, and Excellent Fiber Quality. Grain hybrids typically have a lot of starch but poor fiber and starch digestibility. BMR has excellent fiber digestibility but lower starch and typically poor starch digestibility. It is imperative to build a consistent high forage diet by finding the balance between high fiber digestibility and a good starch load that is digestible!

Fiber and Starch + Digestibility
Both fiber and starch are carbohydrates, which are a cow’s primary source of energy. We need a tool to measure the amount of available carbohydrates that we can grow on every acre to be successful. Our other Senior Forage Manager, Carl Key, has been working on this for many years. He developed a program called Rumen Dynamic Digestible Carbohydrates (RDDC) which allows us to take both the starch and fiber components of corn silage and measure those components’ availability. PEG has been working for many years on numerous farms to produce elite silage genetics that yield and provide excellent quality; RDDC is another tool we offer to our customers that is unique to the industry.

When we plug this year’s wet chemistry into the RDDC program, these are the results:

After we put some values to the milk we are shipping and the additional commodities we would need to purchase to make up for the Rumen Dynamic Digestible Carbohydrates, the numbers would look like this. This calculation is based on a 1000 cow dairy over 365 days. Ground corn and soy hulls were used to make up the missing carbohydrates.

Prairie Estates Genetics accomplishes the ideal balance of yield, amount of digestible starch and fiber that is as close to the industry standard of BMR digestibility as possible. PEG accomplishes this through specific genetic selection and service, unlike any other company. From Wisconsin, to Texas, to North Carolina and Colorado, this technique has widespread utility.

Physical evidence is convincing. Your cows won’t lie to you. Give PEG a try and let your cows convince you.

Mike Kabat
Senior Forage Manager
Prairie Estates Genetics