In a normal year, August would be a time when producers in my area would be closely monitoring the maturity of their corn crop to determine when the optimum timing would be to begin silage harvest.
In 2024, a significant number of acres had been chopped by the first week of September. This year, consistent spring rain delayed small grain forage harvest and spread out our corn planting, resulting in greater variability in maturity of the crop across the county. While it is too early to clearly say that silage harvest will be more spread out this year, producers need to have a plan for a year when the bunkers will not be filled as fast as desired.
Options for delayed silage harvest. The ideal situation is to fill and cap your bunker in three days. This increases the uniformity of forage moisture and quality in the bunker. It also reduces the exposure of the forage to rain and oxygen that can reduce quality of the final product.
What should we do if there is extended time between harvests? Producers will need to rely on their experience harvesting alfalfa when managing the silo. The current recommendations are:
• Harvest all fields at the proper moisture level. You may be inclined to delay your initial harvest to limit the number of trips to the field. This results in some corn being harvested too dry, while others are too wet. Target a range of 65% to 70% moisture to maximize quality.
• Use a progressive wedge fill pattern with a 1:3 to 1:4 slope. This reduced the amount of material that is exposed to the air.
• Each layer should be less than 6 inches and packed to a density of 44 pounds per cubit foot or greater. This is accomplished by packing for two to three minutes per ton or you can use the “800 rule.” The 800 rule is: tractor weight (pounds) ÷ 800 = max tons/hour with continued packing.
• Use a Lactobacillus plantarum or similar inoculant
• Cover with an oxygen-barrier/UV-protected film and weight with tires if it will be more than three days until the next field is harvested
Delayed planting options
The delayed corn harvest could also push back the window for those producers wanting to follow silage harvest with the planting of their small-grain forage crop. Ideally, small grains would be seeded within 10 days following the area’s “Hessian fly free” date. For Wayne County, Ohio, our fly-free date is Sept. 26.
Those producers who anticipate having acres that will not be harvested until mid-October or later may want to consider alternative seeding methods to get the crop planted in timely fashion.
There is limited research looking at the effects of planting date on the yield and quality of fall-planted, small-grain forages. Work from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Jamie L. Whitten Plant Materials Center in Coffeeville, Mississippi showed that ideal planting dates for several small grain forages ranged from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Seeding after mid-October seeding resulted in a 1% reduction in forage yield for each day that planting was delayed.
One option to consider is aerial seeding. This past year, I completed a project where we seeded barley into standing soybeans with a drone. There were two seeding dates (Aug. 20 and Oct. 3), four seeding rates (60, 100, 150 and 200 pounds/acre) and three fall-applied nitrogen rates (0, 50, 100 units nitrogen).
The late August seeding produced greater wet forage (10,374 pounds/acre vs 6,167 pounds/acre) yield and total dry matter yield (1,832 pounds/acre vs 1,084 pounds/acre) than the early October seeding. Regardless of planting date, optimum forage yield was achieved by seeding 150 pounds per acre with the drone. Seeding date, seeding rate and nitrogen application had no effect on the quality of the harvested forage.
We hope to continue this work to look at the effects of seeding date on the production and quality of rye, triticale and barley. Producers will need to consider the cost of an aerial seeding, by plane or drone, when determining if the method is an option for their situation.
If you will be drilling your small grain following harvest, remember that you will need to increase your seeding rate to increase the number of tillers prior to fall dormancy. The Ohio Agronomy Guide recommends a seeding rate of 1.2 to 1.6 million seeds per acre during the first two weeks after the fly-free date. The rate should increase to 1.6 to 2 million seeds per acre three to four weeks after the fly-free date. You can find the number of seeds per pound on the label. It is also recommended to apply 25 units of nitrogen in the fall.
You can find more information on OSU Extension’s small grain research in our eFields project reports. The reports can be accessed at https://digitalag.osu.edu.
