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This is how you reduce your feed costs with maize cultivation
Buying feed accounts for 20% to 30% of your total operating costs on average. It therefore always pays to ensure that you get as much nutritional value from your own land as possible. I will give you practical tips to reduce your feed costs (with your maize cultivation).
The graph below shows that with an increase from 4.000 to 8.000 kilos of milk per hectare from own feed, the feed costs fall from €400 to €500 per hectare!
Maize is an important part of roughage cultivation on many farms. An optimal choice of maize varieties is the important first step towards lower feed costs. After that, it mainly comes down to perfect cultivation, storage and use. When choosing a variety, keep the following points in mind:
1. Harvest-ready corn
The starch from the corn cobs provides a large part of the energy from silage maize. You only achieve the maximum feed value yield (kVEM per hectare) when the maize is fully ripe: so fully ripe cobs and a total dry matter percentage of about 36%.
Therefore, especially choose varieties from the very early/early group† These varieties have the greatest chance of ripening in time: not only on cold and wet soils, but also on lighter soils. In 2019, maize growers must harvest (or undersow a catch crop) before 1 October.
2. Choose a variety that fits your diet
Maize for silage fits perfectly (next to grass) in the rations of the highly productive Dutch cow. Maize provides a lot of glucose from starch and energy from the residual plant. It is important to properly match your maize variety(s) to the proportion of grass in your ration.
Fits in grassy rations starchy corn perfect to provide a lot of extra (glucogenic) energy. With a higher maize share, the energy from the residual plant is particularly important; an excess of starch poses a risk of fattening and rumen acidification. View the top digestible varieties here.
3. Focus on kVEM per hectare
Next is the most important variety characteristic: the VEM yield (kVEM per hectare). Not the tons of dry matter, but the total feed value that you harvest from each hectare determines how much extra feed you have to buy. For silage maize, the nutritional value comes from the cob and from the residual plant.
How much nutritional value the residual plant provides depends on the digestibility of the cell walls: the NDF or cell wall digestibility. A high cell wall digestibility ensures a higher utilization of the energy from the residual plant, so a higher feed efficiency and more milk from each bite of maize.
Unlike starch, there are very large differences, of up to 12% between maize varieties! The most digestible varieties therefore always deliver the highest kVEM per hectare.
Do you also want to reduce your feed costs through your maize cultivation?
- View the recommended maize varieties for the coming season.
- Read more or ask your roughage specialist www.roughfeedforum.nl.
