Roughage tour Looking back at 2021
Surprising results for silage maize in an exciting year
The cultivation season for silage maize in 2021 was clearly not one by the book. What does this ultimately mean for the technical results in the silage at the ten dairy farmers who took part in the Boerenbusiness Roughage Tour 2021? An overview of the maize analyses.
Which aspects stood out from these analyzes of the maize silage and what causes can be linked to this? With the help of Agrility, the Limagrain platform that uses historical and current soil data, weather conditions, satellite observations and calculation models, we list all the results.
A cold start to cultivation
The start of the 2021 growing season started with a very cold and especially wet period. As a result, the soil warmed up very slowly and where sowing was sown, very little happened in the first two to three weeks after sowing. The data from Agrility showed this well during the growing season. According to Leo Tjoonk, roughage specialist at Agrifirm, good maize was nevertheless obtained from the participants.
The plot on the graph above was sown on 8 May and clearly shows how the maize has done nothing or hardly anything until June 15. The graph looked like this for the vast majority of the participants of the Roughage Tour. Despite that, the average figures at the end of the season were good. From mid-June the warm weather made up for it, it was the warmest since 1901. The growth spurt that plots in the south and east were already experiencing, now also took place in the rest of the Netherlands. Only in a much shorter time. The weather conditions later in the year were much more decisive for the final result.
Differences in nutritional value per region
The dry matter percentage was on average 36,5%. In Aartswoud (NH) this was highest (39,5). The dry matter percentage was lowest in Zuidbroek at 32,3%. The digestibility of the plant appeared to be good from the various nutritional value analyses. On average, the percentage of NDF was well above 50%. The NDF digestibility indicates what percentage of the cell walls the cow can digest. The higher the NDF digestibility, the better the utilization of the roughage. This has a positive influence on milk production. The VCOS% varies within the group between 76,55 and 78,15 and is therefore quite close to each other. The average of 77,46% is therefore normal compared to other years.
The good digestibility is also clearly reflected in the VEM values of the maize silages. On average, the group is at 1002 VEM with an outlier of 1024 VEM in Nieuwerkerk (ZL). Starch also performed well this year. The lowest measured starch was 366 in Beerzeveld with a resistant starch of 97. These maize silages are good and easy to digest for the cow.
The graph above shows the difference between the 5 northern companies and the 5 southern companies. The south has an average of 21 VEM more than the north. There is also a fairly large difference in the average resistant starch. In this, the south has 21,5 grams more resistant starch per 1.000 grams. There is hardly any difference (1 gram) between the total grams of starch.
Ronald Smit
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