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This is how you reduce your feed costs with corn
In most Dutch rations, maize provides energy that dairy cows need to convert the protein in grass into milk protein. It is also tasty and provides a lot of nutritional value per hectare. Without maize, expensive starchy concentrates, maize flour or crushed grains have to be purchased to bring energy into the ration.
With these tips you can get maximum return from your maize cultivation, so that your feed costs are lower:
Choose nutritional value
As a maize grower you can choose from a wide range of maize varieties every year. When it comes to reducing feed costs, one variety characteristic is decisive: the VEM yield (kVEM/ha). After all, you don't have to buy every VEM that you get from your own country.
The VEM yield is the result of the dry matter yield times the VEM per kilogram of dry matter. For silage maize, this VEM comes from the cob and from the residual plant. Maize varieties that excel in nutritional value also provide a lot of energy from starch and from an easily digestible plant (cell wall digestibility).
Take care of the cultivation
In practice, many plots do not yet deliver the full yield potential of almost 23 tons of dry matter per hectare of maize varieties such as LG 31.205 and LG Emeen. With more attention to cultivation and insight into the soil, there is still much to be gained from this. But as a livestock farmer you are mainly busy in the barn. That is why there is now the digital dashboard Agrility from LG. Via e-mail reporting you keep the maize under perfect control and you gain insight into your fields. That is how it works:
Choose corn that fits in the ration
Maize for silage fits perfectly next to grass in the ration of the high-yielding 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 especially important; an excess of starch poses a risk of fattening and rumen acidification. View top digestible maize varieties >>
Harvest ripe 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 maize varieties from the very early/early group. These varieties have the greatest chance of ripening in time: not only on the cold/wet soils, but also on lighter soils, where maize growers have to harvest (or under-seed a catch crop) before 1 October.
