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Does brown mid-rib corn fit into your dairy silage program?Mycogen Seeds thinks so and is recommending it for farmers with high-producing cows. But storing and feeding BMR corn requires management skills and the ‘sticker price’ can be a shock by DON STONEMAN Can you make brown mid-rib (BMR) corn work in your dairy ration? Mycogen Seeds, which took over BMR research and development from Cargill, is betting that farmers with high-producing cows and management skills will give it a try. BMR corn is in its third season in Canada, says marketing manager Jarek Nowak. BMR is a naturally occurring gene in corn, first found in the 1920s, which results in as much as 25 to 40 per cent less lignin than regular corn. In BMR corn, Neutral Detergent Fibre (NDF)) digestibility is increased by 12 per cent over regular hybrids, says Mycogen dairy advisor Doug Yungblut. Research in the United States shows that cows fed BMR corn in their rations increase milk production by 6.6 pounds of milk per day if grain levels are kept the same, according to Yungblut. Another approach, and one that Canadian farmers find attractive because of the supply management system, is to cut back on grain to maintain milk production. Mycogen advises taking 3-5 pounds of grain out of a 40-pound (18 kilogram) daily silage ration to keep milk output the same. But working with BMR corn isn’t all roses, Yungblut notes. First, the yields per acre aren’t as high as with dual-purpose hybrids, though with new hybrids they are getting better. Second, BMR silage can’t simply be substituted for regular silage. “You need nutritional support,” Yungblut says. You must also make some changes to how the silage is harvested and it shouldn’t be used right away. It should be allowed to ferment for at least two weeks and, optimally, for two months, before cows get to eat it. Then there is the price of seed. A bag of seed treated with Bayer CropScience’s Poncho costs $295, nearly twice as much as regular hybrid corn seed. However, Yungblut says there is a 17-1 benefit for every dollar spent in increased costs. That 17-1 return on investment helps farmers to get over the “sticker shock” of the seed price. So what is going on with the silage? The lack of lignin affects rumen digestibility, Yungblut says. The neutral detergent fibre component of the plant is on the inside of the plant, acid detergent fibre is on the outside and lignin is in the middle. With less of the lignin component, “we have a huge impact on the digestibility of the plant cell,” Yungblut says. Most high-producing herds are on the borderline of feeding too much grain, Yungblut asserts. With BMR, corn farmers can back off on feeding grain, reduce the risk of acidosis and improve the health and longevity of their cows, he says. Some silage-making techniques must change, Yungblut says. Moisture at harvest is critical and visual determination of harvest timing isn’t good enough. Some corn must be taken off and moisture tested. To avoid seepage, BMR silage must be harvested at two more percentage points of dry matter than normal, and chopped longer, whether it is processed or not. If silage is processed, the rollers should be backed off so that 10 per cent of kernels are left undamaged. Yungblut says half of Ontario’s dairy silage is processed. There’s also more bunker management involved with BMR corn. A producer must know how much you have and where it is stored, Yungblut says. It’s important to analyze it and tell your feed adviser about it. NDF digestibility will be 10 percentage points higher than with regular silage, Yungblut says. Fermented samples should be analyzed after a minimum of two weeks in the silo and two months is better. Freshly made silage is not reflective of the feed that cattle will eat. For this reason, getting the most value from the silage means it can’t be fed right away. One way to deal with this is to put in 14 months of feed at a time, Yungblut says. To make sure that there is enough effective fibre in the diet, some producers add grassy hay or straw in total mixed ration for lactating cows. Other companies selling farmers seed for corn silage have not adopted BMR technology, nor are they planning to. Pickseed is sticking with Leafy corn and marketing manager Jay Hackney points to research from Cornell University that says Leafy hybrids give better milk return per acre of silage harvested. He says that ”lodging problems with brown midrib are a significant drawback” and points to the lower silage yields per acre, while admitting that new BMR hybrids “have a little less ‘yield drag.’” Hyland Seed’s marketing manager Jim Omstead cites the same Cornell research. Pride has chosen to go ahead with silage-specific and dual-purpose corn hybrids. Doug Alderman, manager of Pride’s market development and agronomy services, has been evaluating bT and Roundup Ready hybrids for silage-specific uses. High fibre and protein in them are important for growing replacement dairy heifers. Where corn is planted after corn, Alderman says, bT has a place and Roundup Ready hybrids are a boon to farmers who want convenience in crop spraying when they also have to manage the barn and get off haylage. BF © copyright 2006 AgMedia Inc.
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