
Related story: Corn and project "GEM." Cattle Have a Hankering
for Tropical Corn By Judy McBride November 19, 1999Tropical corn from Mexico and
Central America could become an alternative cattle feed to sorghum in the
southern United States. Dairy cows and steers alike seem to prefer it over
sorghum, based on studies by the Agricultural Research Service. And it
yields about 87 percent more dry matter than sorghum, making each acre more
productive. In the studies, dairy cows ate so much more tropical corn silage that their
milk production increased 10 to 20 percent over sorghum. Silage is a fermented,
moist feed for wintertime. Tropical corn silage also appealed to steers. Tests of its nutritional value
showed it to be slightly less digestible than forage-type sorghum. But the
steers ate more of the tropical corn, evening out the digestibility difference,
according to ARS plant physiologist Joseph C. Burns in Raleigh, N.C. Farmers usually plant sorghum when it gets too wet or too late in the season
to plant temperate corn. Tropical corn is a good alternative because it grows
well in heat and tolerates insects well. Tropical corn works best in the southern United States, where long days and
a long growing season substitute for its native climate. Its season: Plant in
June, harvest in October. Farmers would make and store tropical corn silage in
October. In the corn stubble, they'd plant winter wheat or barley for ensiling
late the following spring. Alternating tropical corn and the winter crop would
protect the ground from erosion and give cows two quality feeds. ARS plans to work with a university economist to see if this approach would
produce extra money for farmers. If so, it might become an even more attractive
alternative to sorghum. Southeast farmers now plant about 60,000 acres of
tropical corn. A story about tropical corn appears in the November Agricultural
Research magazine at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov99/corn1199.htm ARS is the chief research agency of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Scientific contact: Joseph C. Burns, ARS
Plant Science
Research Unit, Raleigh, N.C., phone (919) 515-7599, fax (919) 515-7959,
[email protected].
U.S. Department of Agriculture | |