Where earlage works

Corn may be king when it comes to silage, but don’t sleep on corn earlage, says Sean “Monty” Montgomery, beef cattle nutritionist at Corn Belt Livestock Services Nutrition and Management, from Papillion, Nebraska.

Montgomery, pictured above, spoke at Cattle U on June 25 in Manhattan, Kansas.

In his region of Nebraska, silage producers are looking to corn earlage instead of silage because it is a good fit for feeding cattle where there are ethanol plants in the area that can offer distillers grains.

“Corn earlage is something I’ve seen more and more clients put up,” he said.

The amount of water in corn silage is tough in freezing temperatures, and trucks that haul corn silage haul an incredible amount of water. “It’s hard to stay on top of 50% dry matter with that diet,” he added.

With earlage, harvesters take the cob, husk, kernels and some of the shank. It’s about 65 to 70% dry matter, which is the opposite of corn silage. 

Earlage contains about 80% corn and 20% roughage. Based on more than 530 samples, corn earlage has about 66% dry matter, 7.4% crude protein, 3.6% fat, 16% NDF, 60% starch and 83.3 total digestible nutrient, with an average pH of 5.9. Corn silage, meanwhile, has these values: 40% dry matter; 8% crude protein; 3.3% fat; 35.4% NDF; 36.6% starch, 72.4% TDN and 3.9 pH.

Other silage options

Montgomery said cattle producers have a plethora of options of crops to ensile:

• Alfalfa is a popular crop to ensile, particularly in irrigated country. It’s a good feed, high in crude protein. Wider windrows improve drydown, and cutting the feed in the afternoon and evening increases sugar content.
• Millet and sudan: In a droughty year, be cognizant of high nitrates. “It’s not the end of the world if you have high nitrate forage. Dilution is the solution,” he said. “Grind one bale of high nitrate feed with two or three bales of low nitrate feed.” Ensiling can reduce the nitrate content because the bugs will consume that nitrogen, he added.

Obey the process

Feeding silage to cattle isn’t just as simple as chopping forage and compressing it into a pile. The ensilage process from harvest to feedout normally takes six to eight weeks and goes through four major phases, Montgomery said. The phases include:

• Aerobic: takes place in the first two to four days after ensiling. Here the oxygen becomes consumed by microorganisms.
• Fermentation: from days four to 14, lactic and acetic acids are building up, leading to a drop in pH. For corn, pH value should be less than 4.2; for grass, lower than 4.8. If the pH is too high, fermentation slows, and yeast and mold could result.
• Storage: beginning around two to three weeks, as long as pH is stable, fermentation slows, acetic acid continues to be produced, and the temperature of the pile should drop. If the fermentation stage went well, lactic acid should make up the bulk of the fatty acid content. It is critical to keep oxygen from entering the pile to keep yeast and mold from growing.
• Feedout: Assuming everything else went well, this can occur six to eight weeks after initial silage. The introduction of oxygen during feedout can cause yeast and mold activity to spike, which could reintroduce the fermentation process and lead to spoilage.

Inoculants can pay

Montgomery said he can tell when silage processors use biological products, which contain live bacteria that help jumpstart the fermentation process by producing lactic acid and getting pH to drop.

Some of the products aid bacterial growth; others reduce spoilage.

“It’s like making wine. Wine is 14% alcohol because the yeast is killed by acetic acid,” he said. “Same thing happens in silage.”

Inoculants typically range from 25 to 75 cents per ton.

“It’s pretty cheap insurance,” Montgomery said.

Bill Spiegel can be reached at [email protected].