wholecrop or maize?

farm14

even though were only out of winter need to plan ahead for next. which do you find best?

blue5000

What will it be fed to? If you have land suitable and if we get a good summer maize is better, but wholecrop will do ok if the summer is wet.

Timmaay

blue5000 wrote: »

What will it be fed to? If you have land suitable and if we get a good summer maize is better, but wholecrop will do ok if the summer is wet.

Alot less hassle just to buy in the crop also in my view. Days work in june/Sept to open and close the pit and job done. Like everything the crop won't grow itself either, I'm happier to let someone who knows what they are at do it ha.

yellow50HX

Depends on your setup and storage and feeding method. Have you a silage pit with walls, diet feeder, etc.

I know lad that buys in maize in bales so he dosent have have a large feed face. We have made arable silage in reseeded fields in the last few years and baled it, cows just devoured it, in fact preferred it to the grass silage next to it.

farm14

Timmato lay wrote: »

Alot less hassle just to buy in the crop also in my view. Days work in june/Sept to open and close the pit and job done. Like everything the crop won't grow itself either, I'm happier to let someone who knows what they are at do it ha.

Supposed to be v expensive that way though.

farm14

blue5000 wrote: »

What will it be fed to? If you have land suitable and if we get a good summer maize is better, but wholecrop will do ok if the summer is wet.

Dairy cows. Wholecrop can match it for dry matter. More energy in maize though

Timmaay

farm14 wrote: »

Supposed to be v expensive that way though.

Factor in renting land, your own time, reduced yields due to inexperience of growing it yourself and the diy method can become expense also. But 2bh neither are a cheap feed anyways and you got to weight up many factors, current winter diet and the cows requirements (winter milk HOs?), availability of alternative feeds locally (beet etc), price of concentrates, and then the big one, being able to produce your own 80+dmd rocket fuel grass silage, this means baling almost grass clippings, and achieving a high dm also so plenty of teddering etc.

whelan2

farm14 wrote: »

Supposed to be v expensive that way though.

its also vey expensive when you plant the crop and it doesnt grow, let some one else worry about growing it.

frazzledhome

I see lots of it going on and we grew 60 acres of maize here with 30 acres of beet all for feed. It is fantastic feed for milking cows or fattening cattle with beet being the king of feeds. On paper its dm would suggest beet not be as good as it is but it's rocket fuel.

Maize can be fed into feed passage with bucket or grab so no need for equipment. Beet on the other hand needs to be chopped and mixed with forage. You can of course chop straight on to feed passage but cattle need plenty of room when they stampede to feed rail.

Considering having grown both crops well I conclude that it's banannas to grow yourself. Tillage guys are prepared to grow crops here in Ireland at breakeven or at a loss, so why would you want to join in?

Maize meal and the best of grains are available from your local merchant at close to the cost of production at 98%dm and requiring minimal storage on farm.

I see lots of guys running around cutting each others throats for land to grow maize, wholecrop and beet just to be able to play on tractors. Your farm needs to be stocked to the max before you'd consider these crops.

Leave Dawg to grow the corn maize and Blackgrass to supply the grains and buy as required

Milked out

Are you spring or winter milk? If.spring and.you.need it to buffer for.autumn and spring grass while.maize.can.be good it is generally in too late.to.use for a lot of autumn grazing so wholecrop may suit better. wouldn't grow on my own land would.put the.ground into grass and use for.silage and or young stock if not attached to milking block and buy in if needed Unless like freedom drought can be an.issue on your farm. Everything needs to be right for maize particularly the site.
Edit to add if you do decide to grow maize don't even think of doing it without plastic no matter where u are in the country it needs it in ireland

Dawggone

frazzledhome wrote: »

I see lots of it going on and we grew 60 acres of maize here with 30 acres of beet all for feed. It is fantastic feed for milking cows or fattening cattle with beet being the king of feeds. On paper its dm would suggest beet not be as good as it is but it's rocket fuel.

Maize can be fed into feed passage with bucket or grab so no need for equipment. Beet on the other hand needs to be chopped and mixed with forage. You can of course chop straight on to feed passage but cattle need plenty of room when they stampede to feed rail.

Considering having grown both crops well I conclude that it's banannas to grow yourself. Tillage guys are prepared to grow crops here in Ireland at breakeven or at a loss, so why would you want to join in?

Maize meal and the best of grains are available from your local merchant at close to the cost of production at 98%dm and requiring minimal storage on farm.

I see lots of guys running around cutting each others throats for land to grow maize, wholecrop and beet just to be able to play on tractors. Your farm needs to be stocked to the max before you'd consider these crops.

Leave Dawg to grow the corn maize and Blackgrass to supply the grains and buy as required

Massive+1. Excellent advice.
Go to your local merchants and fix a price now (before the possibility of drought in the U.S.) and let all the other egits take the risk.
The best froward green price I can get for maize is €88/ton at 25% moisture.
Due to new sfp rules I can get sub without growing, so I'm letting many acres idle...
The only maize I'm growing is what I can stick through my own herd and what I can contract out to locals.
€1000/ha is what I get from local farmers for growing maize and €140/ton crimped in their yard.
Maize planting in France this year is forecasted to be up by 5%...

keep going

frazzledhome wrote: »

I see lots of it going on and we grew 60 acres of maize here with 30 acres of beet all for feed. It is fantastic feed for milking cows or fattening cattle with beet being the king of feeds. On paper its dm would suggest beet not be as good as it is but it's rocket fuel.

Maize can be fed into feed passage with bucket or grab so no need for equipment. Beet on the other hand needs to be chopped and mixed with forage. You can of course chop straight on to feed passage but cattle need plenty of room when they stampede to feed rail.

Considering having grown both crops well I conclude that it's banannas to grow yourself. Tillage guys are prepared to grow crops here in Ireland at breakeven or at a loss, so why would you want to join in?
9
Maize meal and the best of grains are available from your local merchant at close to the cost of production at 98%dm and requiring minimal storage on farm.

I see lots of guys running around cutting each others throats for land to grow maize, wholecrop and beet just to be able to play on tractors. Your farm needs to be stocked to the max before you'd consider these crops.

Leave Dawg to grow the corn maize and Blackgrass to supply the grains and buy as required

Plus one and just one other thing about buying in if you buy in whole crop wheat in autumn and feed it in the autumn the milk could be in the tank before its paid for aand the same appliesto beet bought in the spring as opposed to paying rent contractors seed fert etc and carrying it for the year

Blackgrass

frazzledhome wrote: »

Leave Dawg to grow the corn maize and Blackgrass to supply the grains and buy as required

Dawggone wrote: »

Massive+1. Excellent advice.
Go to your local merchants and fix a price now (before the possibility of drought in the U.S.) and let all the other egits take the risk.
The best froward green price I can get for maize is €88/ton at 25% moisture.
Due to new sfp rules I can get sub without growing, so I'm letting many acres idle...
The only maize I'm growing is what I can stick through my own herd and what I can contract out to locals.
€1000/ha is what I get from local farmers for growing maize and €140/ton crimped in their yard.
Maize planting in France this year is forecasted to be up by 5%...

Screw that only crop leaving here for livestock is forage maize, soya, and luppins maybe beans if don't make boat. I won't subsidize your buisness growing bargain basement feed cereals and maybe irish growers should wisen up. Selling to a co-op who's focus is not your area is not good idea.

frazzledhome

Blackgrass wrote: »

Screw that only crop leaving here for livestock is forage maize, soya, and luppins maybe beans if don't make boat. I won't subsidize your buisness growing bargain basement feed cereals and maybe irish growers should wisen up. Selling to a co-op who's focus is not your area is not good idea.

Couldn't agree more but reality is guys will grow for cost of production so it'd be a pity to compete with them:)

stretch film

frazzledhome wrote: »

Couldn't agree more but reality is guys will grow for cost of production so it'd be a pity to compete with them:)

Be the height of bad manners. Rented ground close by yet to be cleared of previous years bales .

freedominacup

With the extra stock around and trying to buy more we decided not to sow any wholecrop. We weren't going to be able to grow enough anyway and were going to have to buy some of our requirement. Waiting on a grower to come back to me with a price on slightly more than we need but the field he has earmarked is just that bit on the large size. We'd have been ploughing up grass for the sake of s fairly marginal exercise in growing it ourselves. Next will be a reduction in grass silage area after that we'll be trying to get young stock contract reared.

edit to say this grower grows a good bit of fodder beet and at this stage has only 300 tonnes not accounted for. Most sold on a fixed price. Don't be too sanguine stretch.

freedominacup

Good bit of maize gone in under plastic around here in the past10 days. First I saw was before last weekend.

K.G.

looks like a bit of ground thats after kale is going to be available to us for only one more year so dont want to reseed it.so whats the best thing to grow in it for the year.wouldnt look foward to chopping 15 acres of beet next winter so its either wheat or maize.or is it westerwolds worth a go.edit to say i might be milking through next winter

Mooooo

Is there much maize grown near the site? Is it sheltered, south facing etc? If not wholecrop may be the better bet. If it's a good site maize may do but the other advantage of wholecrop is it would be in earlier allowing you to use it to buffer grass if need be, maize will be oct in and prob Nov before use. Hard to beat good maize in winter diets tho

alps

K.G. wrote: »

looks like a bit of ground thats after kale is going to be available to us for only one more year so dont want to reseed it.so whats the best thing to grow in it for the year.wouldnt look foward to chopping 15 acres of beet next winter so its either wheat or maize.or is it westerwolds worth a go.edit to say i might be milking through next winter

Westerworlds will have you in the edge of your seat all year because if they go to seed, which they can do very fast, the following crop yields decrease dramatically. The first cut will be lowish in yield and will be extremely soggy and sour on feedout.

The plus for it, is it leaves the ground extremely clean for a proper reseed...

K.G.

im leaning towards wholecrop because there is a pull across some of it which would make beet or maize..harvesting tricky in the autumn and you have a etter chance of good weather in july.this is very old ground and i think if we plough it we will draw alot of stones up where as a couple runs of the isc a d one pass will have wheat in.depending on how things are might stick in a crop of rape after it