Planting Effective Cover Crops by using High Yield Early Maturity Corn Hybrids for Silage.

A recent survey of dairy farms conducted by UMass Extension showed there were options to refine or optimize nutrient planning and on-farm feed production. Our focus is on a farm system approach emphasizing early maturity corn hybrids for silage, early corn planting and cover crops for end-of-season nitrogen accumulation. Six years of field studies (2002 to 2007) at the UMass Crops Research and Education Center farm have shown that earlier maturing corn hybrids have a similar yield to later maturing hybrids. Further, the early maturing hybrids have been shown to have equal or a higher proportion of grain to stover, affording better feed quality than later maturing hybrids. The response of early and late maturity hybrids was similar for total and ear yield, where early planting improved both the yield and contribution of grain to silage yield.