Corn silage is a palatable high energy, low protein forage that is used in most dairy rations across the US. The usage of corn silage has grown over the last decade. Seed companies have focused breeding activities on corn silage hybrids resulting in corn silage hybrid differences that rival other species in nutritional differences. When making decisions about the quality of corn silage, dairy p...

The two greatest silage problems are shrinkage (dry matter losses) and heating (aerobic spoilage). Therefore, one of the main aims of silage making is to reduce losses of dry matter during the preservation process. Dry matter losses occur during the three main stages of silage preservation namely the aerobic respiration stage after cutting, the anaerobic fermentation stage after sealing, and th...

Silage is a common way of storing and feeding forage in the United States. There are 4 phases (aerobic, anaerobic, stable, and feedout) that silage undergoes. The most critical phases to manage to minimize nutritive losses are when the silage is going from an aerobic to an anaerobic environment and at feedout. The first important step in achieving silage of high nutritive value is to harvest at...

Corn silage serves as a high-energy forage for dairy cows. This is most important for high-producing herds and on farms experiencing problems with making or buying highquality hay crop forage. Corn silage, with its relatively highenergy content, is also well adapted for use in low-cost rations for fattening cattle. Corn silage requires less labor per ton to produce than many other forage crops....

On 3 consecutive cuttings, alfalfa from a single field was mowed with a John Deere 946 mower-conditioner (4-m cut width; Moline, IL) to leave narrow swaths (NS) ranging from 1.2 to 1.52 m wide (30-37% of cutter bar width) and wide swaths (WS) ranging from 2.44 to 2.74 m wide (62-67% of cutter bar width). Samples were collected from windrows and dry matter (DM) was monitored during wilting until...

Corn harvested for silage is an important feed crop on most Pennsylvania farms, where cropland often is limited. The crop provides livestock producers with a high-yielding, relatively consistent source of forage and the animals with a highly digestible and palatable feed. Corn silage produces more energy per acre than any other crop grown in Pennsylvania. Corn silage serves as a high-energy for...

The primary goal of making silage is to maximize the preservation of original nutrients in the forage crop for feeding at a later date. Unfortunately, fermentation in the silo is a very uncontrolled process usually leading to less than optimal preservation of nutrients. In order to assist in the fermentation process, various silage additives have been used to improve the nutrient and energy rec...