2011 - Volume #35, Issue #1, Page #27
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Cows Love Corn/Sunflower Silage
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"The cattle love it. It smells like fresh-baked bread," he says.
Last June, the Rosendale, Wis. organic dairy farmer experimented by planting 14 acres of corn mixed with sunflowers. He selected an oil sunflower variety with the goal of improving butterfat and protein levels.
"It's doing exactly what I want it to do," Ferguson says. "Generally I average 3.8 or 3.9 butterfat test this time of year. This year, I have a 4.47 test card. Protein is usually 2.9 to 3. My average now is 3.36."
He planted half corn and half sunflowers at 32,000 seeds/acre. At harvest, he filled a 9 by 200-ft. ag bag and four 20-ft. chopping boxes of silage at 60 percent moisture.
Because he double-cropped after harvesting peas, the crop wasn't planted until June. Ferguson cultivated it twice and waited until the heads turned black before he harvested.
He was pleased with the Sierra Organic sunflower variety from Blue River Hybrids that he selected after two years of research. He notes that next time he will plant fewer seeds per acre to give the sunflowers more room to produce plate-size blooms.
"The biggest challenge was to keep the blackbirds out of it," Ferguson says.
Ferguson's experiment has caught the attention of local media and farmers, but he isn't giving all his secrets away such as his planting pattern. He'd like to work with a university trial.
"This isn't for everyone," he notes, because it requires modifications. "You have to change your mineral base because the oil in this silage is higher."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Kevin Ferguson, W9400 County Rd. T, Rosendale, Wis. 54974 (ph 920 921-5680).
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