Question for you 'real' farmers

[dooleysm]

I've got a 40 mile commute each way to work so I have plenty of time to look around and take things in. Farmers have been harvesting corn for a couple weeks now due to the drought and heat we've been having. I noticed one field in particular last week where they had picked the corn and then gone through and mowed off all the stalks. Yesterday on the way home I noticed they had baled the cornstalks into large round bales. I've never seen that before, what gives? Is that a new thing, or are they maybe worried about not being able to find hay this winter and are planning on feeding this to their cattle?

 

[tydp]

Baled corn stalks is used for cattle feed.

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. and in hard times you will see chopped sour oranges rolle d out into the pasture as well..

Soundguy

 

[hudr]

I have seen cows w/ bloody noses from what they had to eat during hard droughts. We have been to the point of baling soybean stalks in the past. Last year around here a roll of junk hay was worth $50-$60 a bale. Now you are lucky if you can sell it at all. Talk about feast or famine.

 

[ScottOkla]

Their are now places where the stalks are being harvested for their sugars that can be fermented into ethanol. I just read today about studies looking at how little of the stalks/leaves/cobs can be left on the ground to keep the soil intact, while harvesting the rest for feedstock or especially ethanol.

 

[Trac-Tech]

I'm intrested to hear what sort of round baler they used to bale the stalks? Just thinking about it, was it a chain and slat baler? I cant imagine a belt baler or fixed chamber roller baler being able to handle the stalks?? It's just for the information in the head that you might use one day??? I'm sure you know what I mean, so any answers or photos would be appreciated.
Cheers

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Not a great deal of nutrient value in dried corn stalks, but they're better than nothing. Filler for the most part. With what will surely be a severe hay shortage around mid winter, anything that you can wrap a string around is getting baled.

 

[dsb5610]

In my area it is common to use the stalks for bedding in the winter. I've seen the cattle chew on them but that's about it. Never seen anyone put them out for feed.

Almost 30 years ago when I was a kid working for a large farmer we used a 'stacker' to make large stacks of stalks. When round balers became more popular we used that. There are attachments for the front of at least some round balers that will cut the stalk just before it goes into the baler reducing the number of passes through the field. The one I ran was a belt version.

dsb

 

[MossRoad]

I've got a 40 mile commute each way to work so I have plenty of time to look around and take things in. Farmers have been harvesting corn for a couple weeks now due to the drought and heat we've been having. I noticed one field in particular last week where they had picked the corn and then gone through and mowed off all the stalks. Yesterday on the way home I noticed they had baled the cornstalks into large round bales. I've never seen that before, what gives? Is that a new thing, or are they maybe worried about not being able to find hay this winter and are planning on feeding this to their cattle?

I noticed that same thing up here in northern Indiana for the first time last year. Never seen baled corn stalks before that.

 

[ScottOkla]

I noticed that same thing up here in northern Indiana for the first time last year. Never seen baled corn stalks before that.

Do you have an ethanol plant nearby?

 

[Grrrr]

It is interesting how farming practices are different from country to country.

In the UK all of the 'corn' destined for animal feed (most of it) is chopped up by a silage harvester, stalks and all, and then blown into waiting trailers.

This is then taking back to a silage clamp and packed in really tight. It is then covered over in black plastic and fed to the cows from the clamp.

I have never seen corn stalks baled before?

What sorts of machines do you use to pick Corn?

 

[dooleysm]

Very different. I'll let some of the real farmers tell you about it, but one thing I notice right away from the picture you posted is that the corn is all green. You never see corn harvested around here until the stalks are completely dry and brown. Usually that's sometime in late September or October. They started in late August this year, due to heat and drought.

As I understand it, they want the kernels as dry as possible before harvesting.

 

[Soundguy]

I have seen cows w/ bloody noses from what they had to eat during hard droughts. We have been to the point of baling soybean stalks in the past. Last year around here a roll of junk hay was worth $50-$60 a bale. Now you are lucky if you can sell it at all. Talk about feast or famine.

A pasture down from me went bare earlier this year and the cows in there killed a bunch of cedar trees by stripping the bark off them and eating it..

never seen that before!!

Soundguy

 

[Mike120]

My neighbor usually has a few miles of corn. As soon as he gets the corn out, the grass starts growing because of the heavy fertilizer. He only gets one cutting (uses a disc cutter and a Vicon round baler) but the bales are 95% grass and 5% corn stubble. The cows do fine on them.

 

[dsb5610]

It is interesting how farming practices are different from country to country.

Jake,

The practices vary from state to state in the US.

What you describe is similiar to the farmers that feed out cattle around here. At the farm I worked at we would cut a few hundred acres to fill what we called the silage pit and also blow it into silos (Harvestores) for feeding throughout the year. The choppers run close to the ground and leave very little stalk in the field.

The acres that were chopped represented a small percentage of the total acres. The remaining acres are picked with a combine and dried before storing in large bins or sold. A small amount would be run through a cracker/blower which would bust the kernels into smaller pieces before blowing it into silos. This is blended with corn silage for cattle feed. The combines are not run close to the ground, leaving more stalk in the field and also seperate the stalk from the ear and discharge it back into the field. Around this area the remaining stalk is then cut and baled to be used for bedding. We would use a tub grinder to process the stalk bale. The tub grinder spins the bale as it cuts off a layer and blows it inside the cattle sheds.

dsb

 

[schmism]

round these parts (central IL) i see them bail the stalks.... but round hear about 1/4 of the farmers run 3-400 acers corn/soybeans, some pasture some hay feild and a handfull of cattle. Its not uncommon to see a temoryary electric fence put up around a large corn feild and they just let the cows loose to work the feild for the next 3 weeks.

 

[Trac-Tech]

The harvester picture from Grrrr is a forage harvester and as he mentioned chops the whole plant up from just above the ground up and used for silage. This is finely chopped and you need to use a FEL bucket to work it. This is normally cut green.
When harvesting for grain, they use a combine harvester and this is normally harvestsed when the plant is brown and dry. If I remember corrrectly, the moisturte content needs to be in the 5 - 15% range for the kernel depending on the area and the use for the grain. (I had an intimate 6 weeks with one a few years back trying to get the grain sample to within what the customer expected). I beleive that there is a lot of corn (maize) harvested for grain in the US? The front on the machine basically strips the stalk rather than cutting it to remove the cobs. I have worked with one that had flails on the under side like a forage harvester and that sent the stalk through the combine with the leaf. It left a cleaner job, but it did mean a lot more material going through the machine and more chances of grain getting carried out the back of the machine with the trash (leaf and stalk and stripped cob). What I still want to know is, what sort of baler do they use to bale the stalks? Someone mentioned a Vicon baler which I am well versed with and I am presuming it is at that rate a fixed chamber roller baler? The only reason I say this is, it is hard to imagine the belts in a belt baler being able to stand up to the stalks?
If some one knows better, please correct me???

 

[Egon]

From my limited past knowledge base silage, grass/corn, is made for feeding milk cows with the type of equipment shown by Grrrr.

Beef cattle will be fed dry hay/corn.

Don't know why

 

[dsb5610]

The dairy farmers in this area (very few left) feed haylage. Same machine (different head) is used to blow it into a wagon. The wagon is unloaded into a blower that fills long tubes laying on the ground. We used to chop hay and blow it into a harvestore but round bales proved to be a more economical way to feed hay to beef cattle. Not sure if the dairy farmers feed silage. I will ask one when I see them.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I've run a round baler with an attachment that chops the corn stalks before entering the round baler. Most farmers around here make a pass with some type of cutter then rake and bale with the same equipment used for hay. Buying dedicated equipment for stalks may be hard to justify.

dsb

 

[Grrrr]

If forgot to mention in my original post that the maize harvested in this picture was used for dairy cow feed.

As others have said it is chopped up and put in the trailers and then packed in to a clamp.

Then it is taken out in a FEL bucket and fed to the cows.

It is all that is done with Corn (maize) around here. I don't know of anyone who harvests it with a combine.

We do the same with grass, just cut it with a mower first, then row it up and then put a pick up header on the same forage harvester.

We call it silage.