Here in the UK
we are feeling the tail end of hurricane Katia, it has swept across the Atlantic
and it is clipping across northern England
As have mentioned before, we have been the driest area of Britain
for the last three months, this last week we have had some sharp long shower
that has greened the grass up for the cattle. As the clouds come in from the
west they seem to be parted by the highest mountain in Wales
We have an area of peat ground that been a god send for us, having
mown it in late July for bale silage, and since has been grazed by the cows
with calves.
Another thing , we are only 240 foot above sea level, the
small village stream runs into the river Sow near the local town, then on into
the river Trent all heading East and all slow flowing. ( sometime think if
there were a very high tide, it would back up the rivers all the way back to
the Midlands )
Here in UK if we get a bit of snow it stops all the traffic,
that’s town/city traffic folk do not respect the fact they cannot stop, (until the cars bounce off each other ) we moan
if its too wet, moan if its too dry but
in fact we should be grateful for living in such a mild and pleasant climate.
I have never realised how other farmers suffer and endure
such extremes of weather, the very high temperatures and very low, the hurricanes
and tornadoes, until I got to converse with other farmer in US.
If I drive east two hours or west we fall in the sea, that’s
if the motorway is not blocked by an accident, it is said that traffic will
back up 25 miles in less than half an hour, then all side roads and short cuts
get blocked by the volume of vehicles finding alternative routes and often half a day to get dispersed again.
Looking back to Maize,
what is silking?, I know the silk tassels on the cob, but at what stage is the
grain on the cob when you say it just silking,
Over here when the grains are at the cheesy stage the whole
crop is cut for silage mainly to feed dairy cows.
Silking is when the silk appears on the cob which is the signal that the corn is pollinating. It takes thirty to forty days from silking until the (very wet and immature) grain is on the cob, and then another period of time while the kernels fill with starch until the grain is fully mature *this stage is called black layer). To maximize test weight and speed drydown, grain corn needs to be fully mature before any threat of frost. This was often a concern for us in Ontario as we could get a killing freeze at any time after September 15th, and some times much earlier than that. Corn grows best in places with hot summer days (85-95 degrees) and relatively cool nights (60-70 degrees). Here in Tennessee we are often too hot at midsummer for corn to grow in an ideal manner.
ReplyDeleteIdeally, we cut corn for silage when the kernals are at one half milk line or slightly before. Corn left later than this quickly lignifies, especially in hot weather. Here in Tennessee, early planted corn silage might be cut from mid July through the end of August. During this time frame, temperatures are often in the mid to upper 90's during the day and in the mid to upper 70's during the coolest time of night.
Thanks Jason, ours now is about the "Black layer" stage. In the early days of using maize for silage in UK it was only the contractors that had machines capable of chopping maize, by the time they came to us this one year we had had frost and the grains too dry. When we dug the silage out and fed it, the grains came through the cows’ whole.
ReplyDeleteTo counter that some farmers ran pigs with the cattle, to glean out and eat the undigested grain, be it maize or wheat
The choppers now have a pair of rollers that crush the grain as its chopped, the same thing happens with wheat, a lot of wheat is chopped as whole crop silage in our parts particularly if it been dry and short of grass, as it has this season.
I’m too old and lost all my gusto these days to be bothered with new crops to grow and feed, but one of my neighbours wanted some land to grow extra maize, so I am an observer (observe with interest particularly the big new machinery they come with) on how the younger chaps run the modern dairy farm.