Friday Crop Report on a Thursday!

[woodland]

Your corn looks healthy woodland - just a pity it wasn't at that stage a month ago. Mine will be at a similar stage cob wise but is suffering from lack of moisture now as its yellowing with the bottom leaves dried up and falling off. I've never seen so many plants here with 2 cobs either but I'm assuming that works against us in terms of getting one cob to fill and mature?

For silage I can see wanting full mature cobs but for grazing I would think too mature and the kernels will pass through undigested possibly? Our low spots turned yellow and purple from drowning and now some of them are at the same stage as the good spots just knee high with a cob.

Until now I haven’t been concerned about the swathing aspect of it but I think it could be interesting. I know one guy does it with a 30’ MacDon and it goes good. Our 25’ honeybee will get experimented with eventually. Or maybe drop the rolls off the discbine and try that? Good challenges to have especially after seeing the pics of Mallee’s friend down under. 🍀

[grassfarmer]

Sorry woodland my words didn't convey what I meant them to. Your crop, like mine, has zero chance of producing mature grain this year - too late, too cool. I was meaning in terms of actually filling the cobs with anything other than the little bit of water that is in them now. In terms of feed quality these cobs currently have no more feed value than the leaves or stalks - if you get frozen now that's just really expensive grass you've got. The cobs make such a big contribution to yield and quality - I've weighed plants before just before silaging and find a typical cob is 1lb and the rest of the plant is 1lb once it's dried down enough for silage. We need another month of close to 30C and 4" of rain to turn ours into a good crop and it's not going to happen.
As for swathing we have a neighbour that does some to bale and wrap for his cows every year and says its less of a crop to handle than canola. Saying that he usually has smaller, grain type plants than ours - I can't see 30' of 10' high thick corn would be easy to swath but maybe it is with a modern swather. There is no need to swath it of course if you are going to graze it.

[jazz]

The corn on the US crop tour looked the same. How is that going to finish? I dont see 30deg days for them either.

[SASKFARMER]

The area from vermillion to Edmonton looks like our crops in the flood years but late. Thick then flooded thin shit.

Late is the word of the year.

[woodland]

Grassfarmer I did some reading and they claim immature corn silage with little or no cobs has about 85%of the energy of regular corn silage. Worst case I can supplement some tough rolled barley (since our grain crop is so late ........ again) if required.

I’m not doing this since I believe it’ll be cheaper than making and feeding alfalfa bales but to cut back on the tonnage of feed to be fed for a good chunk of the feeding season. Our supposed “slow time” (winter) hasn’t been that way lately and I’d like to change it.

End goal .......... break even on it and save time. Anything else would be gravy. 😎

[grassfarmer]

Hey, I'm not trying to talk you out of corn Woodland as I grow it myself. Just trying to highlight some of the frustrations I find with it and relay them to someone growing corn in an area way less suited to it than I am. 85% of regular corn silage energy puts you into that 55-60% TDN range which is hay category plus your protein will likely only be 9% or so. As you say you can supplement but that's a bit of a pain on corn grazing. No easy solutions.
I understand your reason for wanting to feed less mechanically, I'm in the same boat. Unfortunately the last couple of years have seen us go backwards in that regard - being short of feed necessitates rationing more elaborate feeds and feeding daily. I would love the simple life of bale grazing purchased hay but at $3.50-$4/cow/day feed cost it's not going to happen!

[grassfarmer]

Had a walk in my corn tonight and I guess cob development has really come on in the last week. This is an average cob from the better half of our crop.

[furrowtickler]

Without physical gran maturity, corn silage is mediocre at best. But because of global warming, errrrr not , CHU is way below normal .... again everywhere.
Hopefully you stay frost free for a while yet for corn maturity. 60% of the tonnage from silage comes from the cob . Hopefully the corn gets there for everyone. But look at forecast, global warming not going to help western Canada this year at all ..... it is what it is .
This is just a cool summer , as we seen before , with below normal heat units. Been there seen it. If that corn does not make mature cobs just be prepared to supplement some grain. It will still be great feed.
Makes one feel good though to pay carbon tax’s on a fake global warming scam .
Ask all the farmers with frost damaged canola and corn from the 3 August frosts in this area how they feel about global warming .... I dare you .
Corn cobs can take a -5 or so before they stop filling, so hopefully with this very cool growing season they can fill as much as possible 👍👍

[grassfarmer]

....CHU is way below normal .... again everywhere.

I wouldn't say thats the case in MB. We are sitting in a 94-96% of normal area but a lot of MB is in the 96-100% range. See the data here for May 1 - August 25th 2019:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/weather/pubs/percent-normal-chu.pdf http://https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/weather/pubs/percent-normal-chu.pdf

[furrowtickler]

I wouldn't say thats the case in MB. We are sitting in a 94-96% of normal area but a lot of MB is in the 96-100% range. See the data here for May 1 - August 25th 2019:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/weather/pubs/percent-normal-chu.pdf http://https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/weather/pubs/percent-normal-chu.pdf

Check out the rest of western Canada , oh and the US . You are now in the area much different than the rest of us .
Glad your at near normal CHU 👍. But is the crop later than normal? There is more to the story than CHU . Most crop was delayed off the start , when that happens you need higher than average CHzu to make up the maturity. That’s just common sense . If you did great , but picture show great cobs 👍, but still 2 weeks behind where they should be . Good luck 👍

[grassfarmer]

Check out the rest of western Canada , oh and the US . You are now in the area much different than the rest of us .
Glad your at near normal CHU 👍. But is the crop later than normal? There is more to the story than CHU . Most crop was delayed off the start , when that happens you need higher than average CHzu to make up the maturity. That’s just common sense . If you did great , but picture show great cobs 👍, but still 2 weeks behind where they should be . Good luck 👍

My crop had issues - mainly of my own making that held the crop back - plus it was seeded later (relying on custom operators) Generally the other corn crops I've seen look awesome in S. MB. Some are spectacular but of course they are for grain not silage so will need more time to dry down and mature.

[woodland]

My SWAG is we’re running about 5 degrees cooler than normal here for the growing season so far. I haven’t kept track but I bet the daytime highs have been below 20 degrees more often than above here too.

Last year the neighbours crop matured but the incessant snow kept them from getting it off.

Maybe next year will be “just right” after too dry/ smokey last year and wet/cold this year? Mom was out checking cows with the gator and had her toque on today 🍀