The Rural Voice, 2005-11, Page 12FARM & INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY LTD.
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8 THE RURAL VOICE
John Beardsley
The evolution of corn silage
John
Beardsley is
a freelance
journalist
and crop
specialist
with Huron
Bay
Cooperative.
A sure sign of autumn in farming
country is the combines rolling
through the fields and the appearance
of corn seed salesmen at your door.
Every now and then something
comes along that is a real
breakthrough in crop production. I
remember the introduction of "IMI"
chemistry (trade named Pursuit etc.)
and the "SU"s (sulfonureas, such as
Accent, Summit and Option) and the
way these products dramatically
improved weed control in field crops.
Next was the commercialization of
BT corn hybrids that brought insect
resistance without the use of
chemical pesticides. This technology
broke a yield barrier, caused by an
insect pest, which hadn't really been
evident until the introduction of the
solution. While the advantage,
province -wide, is an average of seven
to eight bushels, anyone who has
tried the traits has their own stories of
20 to 30 bushel increases.
Very quickly after that herbicide -
tolerant crops became available
which meant a further improvement
in weed control over and above that
brought about by the IMIs and SUs.
These past two breakthroughs
required genetically -modified genes
to be inserted into conventional corn
seed varieties. These technologies
were widely embraced by farmers but
were not well explained to the
general public. By no means does the
farming community universally
accept genetically -engineered seeds.
I believe we are at this same verge
of a breakthrough with corn silage
varieties that contain the Brown Mid
Rib genetics. They will be the first
corn hybrids that give enhanced
animal nutrition qualities. The trait
has been isolated out of the native
gene pool population so they weren't
derived using genetic manipulation.
Farmers having strong objections to
GM varieties should have no trouble
adopting these hybrids.
The Brown Mid Rib varieties have
been recognised by agricultural
researchers as having superior
nutritional qualities because they
contain 35 per cent Tess insoluble
lignin which just passes through a
dairy cow without providing
nutrition.
Of course the problem up to now
has been that hybrids have had Tess
standability as a direct result. Lignin
is, after all, important for something.
The varieties available now look and
perform like ordinary corn hybrids.
They are even in a class above the
leafy, silage -specific varieties now
being sold and supported by four
different companies.
When you look at the NDFD
numbers, which measures
digestibility, the Brown Mid Rib
varieties are 10 percent higher. When
you look at a corn plant you have a
grass plant with a cob of grain corn
stuck on to it. The way you
traditionally improved the energy
content of the silage was to have a
plant that would produce more grain.
One way to get over the indigestible
part was to mechanically process the
silage to allow more digestion of the
lignin during the ensiling process.
The domestic milk cow has been
bred from wild ruminants and was
probably kept around because it
could produce food from grass which
wasn't much use as human food.
Given this heritage, it stands to
reason that a cow will perform better
if it is getting its energy from the
grass (green energy) rather than from
corn starch (yellow energy). They
also provide more butter fat (again
tied to effective fibre intake and dry
matter intake).
These Brown Mid Rib varieties
have been available in the longer