Corn Silage Management

Corn Silage Management Practices on California Dairies (Presentation, PDF), by Noelia Silva-del-Rio and Jennifer Heguy (2014) • Current silage management practices on California’s San Joaquin Valley dairies are described. Opportunities to optimize silage management are also presented and discussed.

Silage Management Practices on California Dairies (Poster Presentation, PDF), by Noelia Silva-del-Rio, Jennifer Heguy, and Alfonso Lago • Corn silage is a common ingredient of California dairy rations. In well-managed corn silage, dry matter losses can be as low as 8 - 10%. However, when poor management practices are implemented, dry matter losses can be as high as 20 - 40%.

Overview of Silage Management in California (Symposium Paper, PDF), by Jennifer Heguy (2010) • Current silage management practices in California dairies are described and discussed. Due to environmental pressures, Central Valley dairies are subject to stringent water and air regulations. Discussion of silage management in California is not complete without this regulatory component.

Silage Face Management (PDF), by Noelia Silva-del-Rio (2010) • The goal of silage face management is to minimize silage exposure to oxygen. This article discusses the importance of good face management practices to minimize dry matter losses and describes current silage management practices in California dairies based on a UCCE survey.

Dry Matter

Correcting for Dry Matter, Presentation (PDF), by Jennifer Heguy • Correcting for Dry Matter (DM) at Harvest; Determining Whole Field DM: Challenges and Proposed Solutions; Other monitoring: Length of cut, Kernel processing.

Correcting for Dry Matter, Article (PDF), by Jennifer Heguy • It’s important to remember that as corn matures (DM increases) and starch content increases, fiber quality declines. This trade-off between starch content and digestibility of forage will affect how the silage is incorporated into rations.

General Information

Snapshot of California’s Corn Silage Practices (PDF), by Jennifer Heguy and Noelia Silva-del-Rio for Progressive Dairyman (2015) • Corn silage is a valuable commodity. Dairy producers should invest time and effort to coordinate growers, pest control advisers, custom harvesters and nutritionists to work toward the same goal: maximizing the quality and quantity of the crop harvested and ensiled.

Corn Silage Audits: Lessons from Observing Harvest (PDF), by Jennifer Heguy (2014) • Dairies selected to participate in this study had previously taken part in a corn silage management survey in 2013; Corn silage harvest on 20 San Joaquin Valley dairies were evaluated in the summer of 2014.

2014 Corn Silage Audit (PDF), by Jennifer Heguy and Noelia Silva-del-Rio (2014) • In the summer of 2014, we visited twenty San Joaquin Valley dairies during corn silage harvest and sampled and composited five consecutive truckloads of corn silage for nutrient analysis.