Agronomic, bromatologic and economical characteristics harvest heights for ensiling of corn

• Main Authors: Adauton Vilela de Rezende, Diogo Junsuke Watanabe, Flávio Henrique Silveira Rabêlo, Carlos Henrique Silveira Rabelo, Denismar Alves Nogueira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Estadual de Londrina 2015-04-01
• Series: Semina: Ciências Agrárias
• Subjects: Energy; Fiber; Forage conservation; Production cost; Nutritive value
• Online Access: http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/semagrarias/editor/submission/15527

The aim was to evaluate agronomic, bromatologic and economical characteristics harvest heights for ensiling of corn. The trial was conducted in randomized block design and treatments corresponded to harvest heights of 20; 50; 80 and 110 cm from the soil surface. The agronomic evaluations were conducted 114 days after planting. The percentage of dry matter (DM) and productivity of stem, grain and participation of potassium remaining in the stem increased linearly with increasing cutting height (p<0.05). Therefore, the mass used at ensiling decreased proportionally with increasing cutting height (p<0.05). The silage quality was improved because of the increase in the cutting height. We observed higher crude protein (CP) content and energetic value in the silage harvested at 110 cm from the soil surface, while there was lower fiber content. However, silages produced with plants harvested at 110 cm from the soil surface showed the highest production cost (4.47 times greater than cycling through K in the remainder of the stem). The agronomic and bromatologic characteristics of corn silage improves with increasing cutting height, but the increase cutting height unfeasible economically the practice silage when the generation of final products is not computed. Thus, it is recommended that the cutting height of the corn plant is at most 50 cm.