Environmental Factors Affecting Corn Quality for Silage Production

Abstract

Corn silage is a major ingredient of diets for dairy cattle. Environmental factors can affect the yield and composition of corn silage. Drought and heat are two common environmental factors that affect silage yield and quality. Corn silages with low concentrations of dry matter, high concentrations of protein, high concentrations of fiber, and low concentrations of starch indicate that the crop was harvested too early, that abiotic stresses affected the structure of the plant, or a combination of both. Drought stress during vegetative stages does not affect yield and nutritional composition as much as during reproductive stages. High environmental temperatures (>35 °C) can also induce kernel abortion. The effects of abiotic stresses on cell wall composition are less clear. Drought stress would likely increase fiber digestibility, whereas heat stress would decrease fiber digestibility. These statements are somehow contradictory in the sense that drought stress and heat stress likely occur simultaneously. Management practices, such as hybrid selection and planting date, should be considered to avoid silking and early kernel development during season of very high environmental temperatures.

Possibilities of Using White Sweetclover Grown in Mixture with Maize for Biomethane Production

“…Thus, the only solution is to monitor the MC silage composition and to find an optimum maize:legume ratio. The measured data indicate that the optimum maize vs. White s.c. ratio was 9:1-8:2 as in these variants, the indicators of silage quality were within acceptable intervals-more precisely, they corresponded with the composition of pure maize silage [24,35,37].…”

“…Maize belongs in the family of Poaceae, which means that it is related to more popular cereals (wheat, barley, rye etc.). Poaceae crops have typically higher contents of starch and sugar, and lower contents of fiber and proteins in the grain, which was, in the case of maize, further augmented by breeding for the production of silage for BGP [35], compared with the other crops. White s.c. belongs in the family of Fabaceae with a typical higher content of grain proteins, in which the element accumulates in the period of peak vegetation.…”

“…These crops are very often referred to as so-called high nitrogen or protein crops [34]. Silage quality was affected by the cultivated species [35,36]. It is exactly the difference in the content of grain and plant proteins that can be considered one of the main reasons for the detected differences [36], when the pure White s.c. silage exhibited high protein contents, which subsequently showed in the MC silages, too.…”

“…Relatively big differences were further observed in the experimental silages in the ADF, NDF, ADL and coumarin contents. Based on the studies published by Ferreira [35], it is possible to state that silage maize varieties have been bred for a long time to contain low contents of ADF, NDF and ADL, and on the other hand a high content of polysaccharides (starch). This is in correlation with values determined in our experiment for maize silage.…”

Harvest Time Effect on Quantitativeandqualitative Parameters of Forage Maize

“…However, maize forage yield and quality do not just depend on controllable management practices (planting density, N, P and K fertilization rates, harvesting time and harvesting height), but also uncontrollable environmental factors such as drought and heat stresses (Ferreira et al, 2015). These environmental stresses during the reproductive stages significantly reduce yield and nutritional value of maize whole-plant (Ferreira et al, 2016), and thus cause large economic loss. Also, the plant height, stem diameter and forage yield of maize are significantly reduced under drought and heat stresses (Mohammed and Mohammed, 2019).…”