July 27, 2007

While wind, hail, floods and drought may have ruined some corn fields, they may still have value as a source of forage. Before considering any type of harvest, check with both your insurance agent and local FSA office so you don't disqualify yourself from any supplemental payments.

If your corn is still standing, it can be chopped for silage or cut and baled as hay. It's really important to get the moisture content right for either harvest option and getting it dry enough for hay may be especially difficult. Tall plants are difficult to mow, stalks need to be run through a conditioner, and windrows need a long time to dry. Remaining ears are especially hard to dry so they tend to spoil inside the bale.

Grazing may be the simplest option. If you have a lot more ruined corn than you have cattle to consume it, build a fence around the entire field as you would when grazing stalks in winter. It also might be worth it to find additional cattle to graze the field. Yearlings easily gain one and one-half to two pounds per day on corn forage. This could produce some pretty cheap gain for feedlot cattle compared to feeding grain or by-products. If you strip graze the field, you will get two or three times as many animal days of grazing compared to giving cattle access to the entire field.

Bruce Anderson
Extension Forage Specialist