Maize - Rent Land or Buy Bales

TheClubMan

Well folks, I run a small dairy operation and I want to include maize in the herds diet this year. I don't have enough land to grow my own. I was just wondering would it be cheaper to rent land and grow my own paying for the associated costs or would it be cheaper to buy in maize bales? Maybe I could grow maize on my silage ground which is on an out farm and buy in my silage or rent land instead?

Keepgrowing

Having grown maize in the past, I'd do neither. I would buy in maize meal and not have to handle the low digestive stalks.

Another option is to buy washed fodder beet, no energy feed to match it.

Mooooo

Are you increasing stocking rate that you need more forage or are just looking for more energy? If the latter The last few years concentrates were prob better value, as Keepgrowing said beet is super stuff as well. Price it up, approach a grower and see what they charge, have heard of lads growing it for 750/acre not including land charge so if your renting ground for 200 it may be as well to buy it in to the pit. The cost of maize bales would make it unviable tbh. If buying due to requiring a forage it's good but if it's just to supplement prob better choices out there at current prices

GrasstoMilk

We have maize here this year for first time ever.
Contractor grew it and we paid 50e a tonne for how ever much we wanted.

I don't see it as playing a role here in the future. We only got it because we ran out of silage last spring and didbt want the same to happen this year. Turned out we would have probably been okay.
Need more land and this is just a stop gap for this year for us.

More often than not what happens to lads when they have a pit of maize, 1st week of April, cows being supplemented maize, grass takes off and you've 20t of maize left and ye can't close up such a small amount so you've to keep feeding it.

High DMD bales would be more versatile

Timmaay

Buying pit maize at 50e/ton and assume 33%dm (ie very good maize), that 16.5kg/dm, or 165e/ton, Baling the maize will drive the cost up to likes of 65e/ton, which is 21c/kg or 210e/ton, as was said likes of rolled barley or soya hulls at 170ish/ton are a hell of a lot more versatile, and can be ordered and paid for as you need them.

The utter only reason I still have maize here is we have too extreme a HO cow still, with very average fertility, alongside that not constant enough silage yet, so I use the maize to put condition on the cows before dryoff. The winter bonus is the only thing making the economics worth while. Once I improve the 6wk calving interval and cull more of the very HO cows I could cut out the maize.

Having said that we will be growing our own maize this year, with the land charge included, at a 22ton/ac yield the maize would stand us 41e/ton, or about 13.5c/kgdm, not actually much over grass silage, and it's usually just one big crop in late September against 2 or 3 cuts of grass silage. That's assuming the weather plays ball, if it doesn't like 2012 the yields could be down at 16ton.

Sam Kade

TheClubMan wrote: »

Well folks, I run a small dairy operation and I want to include maize in the herds diet this year. I don't have enough land to grow my own. I was just wondering would it be cheaper to rent land and grow my own paying for the associated costs or would it be cheaper to buy in maize bales? Maybe I could grow maize on my silage ground which is on an out farm and buy in my silage or rent land instead?

Maize in bales? Some fun keeping crows and rats away from it, I've seen crowr peck through 3 layers of plastic on the pit to get at the maize.

whelan2

Maize goes off very quick at the pit face. Maize wont grow here and was an expensive exercise to find that out. Make good quality grass silage and buy in meal is the handiest option, thats what I am doing this year. Found it hard to manage the 2 pit faces being fed at once. Solids and yield are better this year on grass silage

Mooooo

Yeah ideally you need a narrow pit for maize, just wide enough so the loader can roll effectively. Although when the contractor rocks up with a L120 there is only so narrow you can go with a machine like that. Only thing that will stop crows is a physical cover they cannot get through with no gaps. Zill covers, lorry curtains mats must overlap if using them. Had netting on over tyres and still didn't work with the fcukers. The other thing is the cost of extra protein required to balance the maize also.

Bass Reeves

I am not really sure if it is economical to grow and pit small amounts of maize.I even question the viability of crimping barley , wheat etc. Using products like Home and dry to increase P may be an option on preserving some grains. All these methods are ok if you use the total crop during the feeding period. If you have 10-20% of the pit left over in April then you have to add that to the cost of the feed if you cannot save it for followingyear. Even if you save some you still have loss in quality.

Assuming a 10% left over you are adding 1.3-1.8c/ kg to your cost. While bales work out more expensive they have certain advantages. You only pay for them when you buy them or maybe even 30-60 days after. I think the header for the baler cuts higher so no stalk. You can buy only the amount you want. While in theory barley was good value this year lots of poor quality barley around that would be expensive at 150/ton not to mind 170-180. The real advantage of beet is it increases intake however as a feed source in general it is more expensive than grain. Fed in high quantise it taints milk. Down the line I think processors willntest for this.

OP I think I would look at the spec of the nut I was feeding. With maize you are looking at 70% of the cost up front if growing yourself. Contractor growing will want a margin thatby the time you pay in advance will bring it to near ration cost. By getting a nutritionist to spec a nut to the quality of silage you have if you are feeding unfairly large quantities you should close the gap in what is the precieved value of maize

Keepgrowing

Tim quoted figures of 13/14c per kg DM.

Are these with plastic?
Have you factored in the 2 crap crops in 3 years?
Have you calculated cost per mj of energy ie starch because that's what you should be setting out to grow.

Maize in Ireland is marginal, it's like getting good hay only happens the odd time. Plastic is a must here and I'm wondering has it been factored in?

Mooooo

Maize balers are in the yard trailer is tipped or maize loaded on to hopper and it goes into the top of the baler. Will need 1.5 to double the amount of plastic of a silage bale depending on being moved. As said above if another forage isn't required at the moment there are better options. Of course making quality silage is the key, maize may cover over it a bit but performance will always improve if silage is better no matter what is fed with it. Another issue with feeding a second forage is unless it's well mixed strong cows will take the maize and silage will be left for the rest if just dropping at the feed face. This year I will buffer with maize as cows go out and hopefully reduce conc cost at grass in first few weeks

Mooooo

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Tim quoted figures of 13/14c per kg DM.

Are these with plastic?
Have you factored in the 2 crap crops in 3 years?
Have you calculated cost per mj of energy ie starch because that's what you should be setting out to grow.

Maize in Ireland is marginal, it's like getting good hay only happens the odd time. Plastic is a must here and I'm wondering has it been factored in?

Agreed even on best of sites plastic is a must. Haven't it to hand but I think I worked it out at 18c/kg into the pit here. Now timmay may have ground cheaper than what it is around here and maybe less of a contractor margin as I but it on contract as opposed to grow it

Timmaay

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Tim quoted figures of 13/14c per kg DM.

Are these with plastic?
Have you factored in the 2 crap crops in 3 years?
Have you calculated cost per mj of energy ie starch because that's what you should be setting out to grow.

Maize in Ireland is marginal, it's like getting good hay only happens the odd time. Plastic is a must here and I'm wondering has it been factored in?

My 13c figure is based on 41e/ton, yielding 22tons, and at 33%dm. I'm working off 750/ac cost to grow it under plastic, all machinery work done by the contractor, then adding in a land charge of 170/ac. Buying in maize costs 50e/ton so would be more like 16c/kg. I have not factored in starch content I'll admit, that's the next step for me. On the 2crap crops in 3yrs, here in East Wicklow we have had 3 exception years in a row for maize, there are a surprising number of farmers who take the risk of growing without using plastic, and have got away with it, in 2015 one of the neighbours yielded 24ton/ac without plastic. In 2012 I'll admit fully that the lads without plastic were phucked altogether, some crops ended up ploughed back into the ground.

The other reason maize is reasonably popular here is it reduces the risk during heavy summer droughts, very few dairy farmers around me depend anyway at all on 2nd cuts, it's a pure bonus if we get surplus bails from late June onwards, putting out 80units for a 2nd cut is something the most of us will do once and once only, I did it in 2013 I think, total waste of money, cows had to graze the whole lot ha.

For them reasons, and because my stocking rate has crashed through the ground to 2.2 this year I'm doing the cardinal sin altogether and growing some on the milking platform this year haha.

Actually the final thing I'll say, I use about 8ac/yr for the 90/100odd cows here most years, as I said before mostly fed late lactation, however I know of other winter milking lads with similar or less cows who grow the likes of 25ac every year, diet feeder going 1/2 the year, that's a system that I'll never ever be in.

And finally finally, obviously site location is utterly critical also, South East facing land, with decent soil, ideally not too drought prone, but dry enough that you can still harvest it in a wet back end.

ArKl0w

I've grown maize here for several years with no plastic with on average some super crops
In Coastal east Wicklow in my view Plastic is a horrendous waste of money
It's a different story if you're on high ground

mahoney_j

For what it's worth I've been quoted 950 an acre in the pit for coming year for 10'acres .very very good tillage man will do it and nothing spared ,pig farm near by and crop will be sown under plastic .justvsussing options atm as I'm going to need more silage ground this year ,I'm confident I'll pull enough surplus of my own ground for millers at shoulders and young stock

Mooooo

It's not just about a big tall crop with high yields, the quality has to be there too. Plastic is insurance really in a bad year you'll have some hope with plastic. I'll try and root out the results for the last few years and post em up. We'd have higher rainfall than ye down here in Cork alright.

Mooooo

16 results;
9.1p, 11.5 me, 32.9 starch, 33.9 DM, 75 Dmd
15 results;
9.2p, 11 me, 27.4 starch, 27 DM, 73 Dmd
14 results;
8.2p, 11.5me, 26.1starch, 33.4 DM, 75 dmd

I think in '14 I used the bag to store a good bit of it and it kinda mulched it so may have pushed up the DM reading. All samples sent to sciantec. This year's and last year's cored from pit. Ideally you'd pay on quality but contractors want to cover there costs/margin and bad/good weather same as anything can effect quality. altho I send the results to our fella as he wants to try and get the right variety for yield and quality. If I wasn't buying maize I'd be looking for 70 odd acres of grass silage instead or whole crop instead as I'd be short of forage.

ArKl0w

Mooooo wrote: »

It's not just about a big tall crop with high yields, the quality has to be there too. Plastic is insurance really in a bad year you'll have some hope with plastic. I'll try and root out the results for the last few years and post em up. We'd have higher rainfall than ye down here in Cork alright.

Oh I know that but Still,Plastic won't do a whole lot for a cool wet summer
If your maize is up and growing without plastic and then hits a cool wet summer everyone is in the same boat ,except some have the expense of the plastic

But as in all crops,every farm different decisions and what's right for some isn't for the next lad

Mooooo

ArKl0w wrote: »

Oh I know that but Still,Plastic won't do a whole lot for a cool wet summer
If your maize is up and growing without plastic and then hits a cool wet summer everyone is in the same boat ,except some have the expense of the plastic

But as in all crops,every farm different decisions and what's right for some isn't for the next lad

True but have seen a crops side by side in similar good sites and a there would be a big difference in the crops, but that could be due to the better start and as said we tend to get wetter weather down here. One thing our lad is adamant about is not mucking in the crops, he reckons a lot of lads get caught with a wet spring and try get the crop in instead of waiting for better conditions, he's waited any late springs and says they have turned out better than lads that panicked getting it in.

Timmaay

ArKl0w wrote: »

Oh I know that but Still,Plastic won't do a whole lot for a cool wet summer
If your maize is up and growing without plastic and then hits a cool wet summer everyone is in the same boat ,except some have the expense of the plastic

But as in all crops,every farm different decisions and what's right for some isn't for the next lad

You got me thinking now, how much will I save by not using plastic?

ArKl0w

Timmaay wrote: »

You got me thinking now, how much will I save by not using plastic?

A lot! Your best bet is to get a few local names off the contractor and talk to them We haven't grown it to be honest in two years as it's liquid only in winter here now and like yourself the target is to get as much of that made with grass as possible (which begs the question why are you growing such an expensive feed if most of it is not going into producing milk?)
East Wicklow is a sunnier and dryer spot by far than a lot of Cork or other parts of the country so it grows well at sea level without plastic once it gets going as long as you aren't on high ground