corn

[cakadu]

Did you ever imagine that in our area - west Central Alberta - we would even entertain the notion of growing corn? Look at how the climate has changed to where we have the potential heat units for corn to grow.

My understanding of the corn is that the animals just love it and will eat it all up - no waste. Hmm, I wonder how sheep would like it?

[kato]

We seeded Roundup ready corn - 20 acres

Seed $1790
Roundup & Custom Spraying $275.46 - twice.
Custom seeding by neighbour $250.00

Works out to $129.54 per acre.

No harvest cost. The cows will do that. No fertilizer cost. The cows did that too. LOL Corn loves manure. It's the fertilizer of choice around here.

We just walked through it, it was seeded really late because it was so cold and wet here, but it's still over 8 feet high and has cobs. They aren't filled in yet, but they are coming along.

You have to find a variety with a low heat unit requirement. The grain corn crop in Manitoba has been pretty much written off because of the cold summer, so having cattle to eat it is a bonus in a year like this.

[blackjack]

cswilson... that was one of the interesting parts of the tour... this ranchers field was sod bound in quack...they sprayed with roundup disked it a couple times then seeded ...sprayed a couple more times hard to believe the results unless I had seen for myself...

[cswilson]

Guess it's not for me I kinda like quackgrass-but I did get a Western Beef Development Centre flyer where corn was actually cheaper than barley on a per tonne basis so it does have it's merits.

[mgh]

For those of you who have grown corn, I'm a first timer and have a few questions...

First, my corn has cobs, but they are barely starting to fill, will probably be frozen here in the next couple days. While it is impotrant that the plants are cobbed, is this all that is important? Do most of you get complete filling, or just cob development?

Also, are your corn crops fairly clean? I sprayed mine before seeding, then direct seeded at the recommended seeding rate, then sprayed once more when the corn was about 4-5 leaf (Roundup Ready). The crop looked fairly clean after that, but now it's really a mess underneath. Lots of Lamb's quarters, hemp nettle, etc. Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, will the cows take down the weeds too??

I'm really anxious to get the cows out on it...

The last question, how many cow days/ac do you get out of your corn if grazing it. According to Monsanto's ads, one cow will graze 5% of 1 acre per week. If my math is right, that's 140 cow days/ac. At my costs of $200/ac, that works out to $1.40/d, but I've heard values as low as $.60/hd/day. I'm hoping my cows eat more like 2.5% of one acre per week!

What have you found?

[cswilson]

I helped silage 3 pivots of corn last year and it seemed pretty weedy underneath to me too-don't worry your cows will eat most of it.