iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

The Feed Crop, Grain, Forage and Soil Health Thread

Started by mike_belben, September 06, 2021, 04:24:28 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

mike_belben

I dont wanna keep derailing garden threads with stuff not related to gardens.







for you cow corn gurus, how many ears should i get on a stalk?  i planted a bit too dense thinking my sprouted seeds would have some loss but not one of them actually died.  the most robust stalks hit around 9ft tall with 2 ears, and the runts are trapped underneath at 1/3rd the size.  since im feeding the corn to chickens i am removing the stalks as i harvest 2 mature ears, in hopes that the runts can respond and finish off.  but im seeing small 3rd ears on those big stalks.  

you think they will they come to fruition or fizzle out?  i have to weigh the nutrient and light cost of a monster stalk crowding a little one that has 2 mid sized ears, where keeping the big stalk may only provide a stir fry baby corn and also prevent the shaded ears from filling out.  

at my present scale it doesnt matter at all, but i prefer to learn sooner rather than later.

this was august 2nd







Praise The Lord

farmfromkansas

I drove a silage truck for the neighbors the other day, and the corn stalks looked like they were about every 4" in the row, and each had one big ear of corn, the 2nd ear did not develop other than a small shuck. We have had pretty good rains this summer, the one Sept 2 was just in time, we received 2 3/4".  It was just in time for the beans.
Most everything I enjoy doing turns out to be work

mike_belben

Is that the new magic number, crowd them in and get 1 ear per stalk?  Or was it a failure to get the 2nd ear and a big yield loss per acre? 



Im really unsure of what happens when you pull a ripe ear off and leave the other to grow.  Whether it gains in size or ends up stunted or over ripening etc.  First time corn made it to maturity for me. 
Praise The Lord

farmfromkansas

They had to get some bales and make the pile longer.  Think it was a huge success.
Most everything I enjoy doing turns out to be work

btulloh

One big ear, one second ear that's pretty good if spacing is adequate. Anything beyond that is a freak show.
HM126

mike_belben

I cant believe it took me this many months to stumble onto virginia techs weed id database.  Theres a lot of nutrition in "weeds"

https://weedid.cals.vt.edu/
Praise The Lord

moodnacreek

Mike, I'm surprised you did that good with the corn [being from Mass and all].  2 ears and a nubbin is the best I ever do but more like 1 big ear and a nubbin most times. That high nitrogen fertilizer is too much $. If you plant the same ground [with corn] next year you would do worse.

farmfromkansas

I have found that composted cow manure is just the best fertilizer.  There is a lot of bedding mixed with it, and bale bottoms, that is the stuff left in the feeder when the cows have gone through it, that is piled in the spring and allowed to heat, which kills the seed.  Have been spreading it the last couple weeks, even on hot days steam comes out of the pile when I disturb it with the loader.  The hay that comes out of the pile is gray colored like it has been on fire.  I just load it on my manure spreader and spread it on poor grass.  Native grass, (CRP) seems to benefit more than brome grass, but all does better.  Just a thin layer really helps the health of the grass.  Had a field that was so poor that it only had a little tuft of grass here and there, with a lot of bare dirt between the tufts, and since putting on some manure it has thickened the grass significantly. Would put it on farm ground if there was enough to go around, but going to get the grass healthy first.  Does take a couple years before the compost fully breaks down and becomes dirt, which helps more.
Most everything I enjoy doing turns out to be work

mike_belben

Quote from: moodnacreek on September 07, 2021, 07:55:25 AM
Mike, I'm surprised you did that good with the corn [being from Mass and all].
yeah i know'd it.    ;)

i think it was 3 or 4 sweet corn fails before i got good enough at soil building. but it still took a boatload of fertilizer.. corn is a spendy crop to produce. if it keeps taking more fertilizer to produce the same yield your soil microorganisms are dying off. jumpstart them back with an abundance of organic matter, moisture and time.

here is a current pic with the largest ears removed and the suffocated ones now getting front row, seem to be responding pretty fast.  



you can see that tilled up strip in the background.  it was a little too hard when i planted this but i let it grow knee high grass, right up into the tomatoes, cukes and squash that i had twined up to fenceposts or an A-frame stick arbor.  the weeds didnt stop any of that from growing but the grass root system dug down into the hard clay and gave it broke it up.  i flipped that big green afro with a shovel and let it suffocate then rototilled to break the sod up. let the weeds provide organic matter.




will be seeding it with some cool season stuff today.  some corn is gonna stay as a sunscreen until the new stuff is hardy enough and hot season has waned a bit.  then ill chop the rest of the corn out. (i planted early radish, white beets, forage rape, kale, purple top turnip and cabagge.  need more space to open up before i can put in the bush beans, onion and rutabega.)


the stalks that were completely enclosed in the center of the patch with no access to direct sun have only put on one large ear and much less leaf, as well as less height while having no more than 8" in any direction, very dense. some of them are 4" apart.  those stalks are really spindly, half the diameter of the big ones, and half the height.  but on the other hand- the ears arent really much smaller. so that jammed together segment probably extracted a lot less soil resources per cob.   maybe thats how the high density wins.. less fertilizer input? less nutrient extraction to grow the same tonnage of grain?    at a glance, i am thinking more space would be much more productive in tonnage of green stover if you were grinding it all for feed. maybe im wrong.. just thinking out loud.




@farfromkansas-  the hot, white smokey thing is a function of hot composting.  some living microbe produces it.  they are breaking down the carbon (straw, hay, wood chip, leaves etc.  "browns") and consuming the nitrogen (manures, grass etc "Greens") as an energy source i guess. having it cooking hot and a little sweet smelling (ammonia) means youve got plenty of nitrogen, maybe excess so it happens fast.  if youre really cooking even in winter, add some browns.. take advantage of the huge microbial action present to reduce all the browns you can because they are whats really slow.  like rotting wood and bark.  the more you pee on it the faster it turns brown.  the nitrogen in that whiz is like hiring a small crew of workers for a huge project.  when youve got a huge manure hill, you have enough workers present to break down 2 more equal sized sawdust piles.  you can get dirt in about a month by mixing that ratio if it stays hot.  

its odd the things youll think are fun when you quit drinking.  
Praise The Lord

Southside

Quote from: mike_belben on September 07, 2021, 12:46:24 PMif it keeps taking more fertilizer to produce the same yield your soil microorganisms are dying off


Guess I would say that a little differently.  In many cases the fertilizer is the reason your soil biology is dying off to begin with.  Crops remove nutrients from the soil as they are harvested and one way or another those nutrients need to be replaced.  The scaled solution has been chemical fertilizer, but that comes with a cost.  For example, nitrogen in the form of urea or anhydrous ammonia is a desiccant, so all the worms, micro flora, etc in the region of application suffer and you end up with dead zones that ironically can only be "repaired" with additional fertilizer.  Self fulfilling circling of the drain.  
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

newoodguy78

That's an excellent description of what I feel has taken place on this ground I'm working here. I've been trying cover crops and applying "compost" horse manure that's been piled up for years. It's amazing to see the ground and plants respond so well. 

mike_belben

visit to a friend yesterday, "army worm" has eaten up an entire paddock on him and apparently a lot of others.  he is maybe 15 miles from me.  i guess the whole region is out of pesticide and its spreading fast.  not good.





you can see how brown and dead all this goose grass is.  the permanent fence makes for permanent cow walking paths that are too compacted to grow and has luckily prevented them from crawling into the other fields. 
Praise The Lord

beenthere

Mike
Spectracide Triazicide


is in stock on Amazon in gal concentrate. 

Sorry to read about the army worms. Gotta stay ahead of them.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

mike_belben

Praise The Lord

newoodguy78

That's a bad deal for sure. How many acres are effected

mike_belben

not too many at jackie's.. thats his sacrificial mudlot for rainy weather to keep the leased pasture from getting pugged up. this one drains pretty fast with all the slope.  the bulk of it is in that picture. 
Praise The Lord

moodnacreek

Mike when I weed the corn I leave the pulled weeds in the row to get tilled later. My wife doesn't like that and she picks up her weeds and throws them over the bank.  So the next time you stop by you can talk to her about this and easy on the hammer coming up from Port J. :)

mike_belben

'fraid Its gonna be a while on that trip doug. I will be sure to stop and harrass you though.
Praise The Lord

mike_belben

Woodchipper eats corn just fine. After 3 days of fermenting in water my birds are happy eating chopped cobs too so in it goes.









Corn is incredibly digestible compared to other feeds, and fermenting just increases that.  

Maize grain, yellow | Feedipedia

Gonna ferment the chopped stover too, incase i find some free pigs and have to overwinter. This stuff should be pretty rich given it just came off the stalk.  Chopping and fermenting will improve digestibility, very fibrous otherwise.

Maize stover | Feedipedia






Tomorrow i will chop up more yard greens and ugly maters.. Hopefully i can make enough free feed tomorrow to get the whole crop to slaughter weight.


I planted a lot of leafy green cool season proteins yesterday to make up for the warm season ones that will be trailing off soon.
Praise The Lord

Southside

Funny - the corn in your pool looks just like whats known as shredlage.  Guys pay big bucks for a forage harvester that will produce that material. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

mike_belben

Go figure.  Got mine at the scrapyard  ;D
Praise The Lord

Nebraska

A silage  chopper and a wood chipper are very similar machines, if you think about it. Just one handles a much large volume of finer stemmed stuff.  Conceptually the guts aren't much different.  When you are done chopping Mike  make sure you pack and tarp the pile well so you get a good fermentation. Oxygen will spoil the batch. Wait six weeks and it's  done.  :)

Nebraska

My 2 cents since this is the forage thread.  Just some pictures.

 

Yes corn in a field along the road.

 
It's been a few weeks  since I checked an ear. This stuff  is very good that ear has a diameter almost  as wide  as my phone.  Those corn plants are roughly  nine feet tall. Rains came in a timely manner. Soybeans look pretty good for the most part.  We missed very dry conditions  by  about 80 miles.



 

Got a second cutting of cool season grass put up last night.  I cut the stuff I won't late season graze...A small four acre patch left to do this evening. Then pick up the bales.  Clean up and grease the equipment  and put it away til next year.

mike_belben

wow, nice work doc.

i have been reading about ensiling trying to decide what to do with the green shred.  the corn cob mash already got soaked in water overnight and a little fed out this morning. its obvious that its producing vinegars and they ate it like gangbusters.  i have to hurry up and go get a drum from a neighbor before the stover loses any more quality.. i mean not that it matters, im just playing right now to see what can be scaled up..but the stover is getting pickled like kimchee.  

this has been the best single source ive come across about the whats going on part of ensiling
Understanding the process of corn silage fermentation and starch availability | Hubbard Feeds


and yes, it only took a few minutes to determine there is a really really big industry for the machine shops when it comes to shredlage now that i know the term to look it up.  ag universities are on board and the data suggests its the best technology for high output dairy feed. makes seeded out dry bales look pretty unappealing!


i would say there is a tremendous opportunity for someone to produce a user serviceable, corn harvesting and shredding rig that runs on 35 PTO hp and can be afforded by a working class mortal.  shortages are normalized, everyone is gonna have food on the mind as less and less is available for more and more dollars. you could finish animals a lot faster on good feed year round.
Praise The Lord

newoodguy78

I've got to look into this shredlage deal , I've never heard of it. Without knowing anything about it seems like a comparable product could be made by backing the shear bar off and or taking knives out . The flail choppers the old timers used to green chop come to min as well.
Can't imagine digging that stuff out of the bunk after it's piled, that stuff must bind together like crazy.

Thank You Sponsors!