Getting ready for harvest

High quality, high-yielding maize results from a series of good decisions. While most management decisions which impact crop yield are made early (e.g., hybrid choice, paddock selection, planting date, nutrient input), there are still a few things most farmers can do to ensure they maximise yield and make the best quality maize silage:

Get in the queue

If you haven’t already, contact your contractor and let them know when your maize is likely to be ready. This enables the contractor to plan their work schedule and put you in their work queue. Check the access and proximity to drains, sheds, and fences and assess potential health and safety hazards (e.g., overhead powerlines). You may need to drop some fences to ensure safe and efficient access to your stack site.

Clean up your storage area

Clear away and dump any rubbish. To reduce the number of rats, bait for rats at least three weeks before the maize is stacked. Make sure the fences around the storage area are stock proof.

Ensure you have enough tyres

Check that the number of tyres you have available will be enough to cover the stack fully.  Remember that the aim is to have tyres touching across the whole stack.

Use an inoculant that works

To maximise the value of your maize silage, it’s crucial to focus on minimising losses through good stack management and the use of a proven inoculant like Pioneer® brand 11C33RR. Most maize crops lack sufficient beneficial bacteria for efficient fermentation, leading to drymatter and energy losses. 11C33RR introduces tested bacteria that help improve fermentation, reduce silage heating, and increase feed quality. A New Zealand trial showed that maize silage treated with 11C33RR and ensiled for 9-11 days stayed cooler 43 hours longer than untreated silage. Once the inoculated silage had been in the stack for 60 days, it stayed cooler 97 hours longer than untreated silage, enabling greater flexibility at feed-out.

Harvest at the right time

Contact your local merchant or Pioneer Area Manager and ask them to check your crop. They should be able to give you a reasonable idea of an approximate harvest date by taking into account kernel milkline, the drymatter content of the plant and the likely grain-to-stover ratio. The aim is to harvest somewhere between 30-38% DM. Harvesting earlier than this will mean there is likely to be some yield loss due to less starch accumulation. Drier crops are more difficult to compact and therefore ensile, however, it should be noted that some very high grain content maize silages can be drier and still easy to compact. Crops that are affected by disease, drought, or frost are likely to be ready earlier than those that are healthy and green all the way to the base of the plant. Crops in hotter regions are also more likely to be ready sooner than those in cooler regions.

For more information, talk to your local Pioneer representative.