Really Low Input Grazing Corn?

[Stocker Steve]

I have purchased conventional seed corn in the past for grazing. Now I am thinking about going really low on inputs due to the current price of seed. The plan is:

spray out with Roundup once the soil warms up
spread manure and work it up
drill in bin run corn
apply preemergent

Any tips on seeding with a grain drill and bin run corn???

 

[Aaron]

Really low input would include no herbicide as well Steve. Try it on a small scale. Neighbours put in 40 acres this past year of Pioneer Hybrid. No herbicide, no fertilizer. Just offset, drill it (May 23) and leave it. 10 tons to the acre come October 6. :cowboy:

 

[fargus]

Steve,
If I were to drill it I would still block off runs so it was on wider rows. (Even if its every other for 15" rows. These new genetics have been selected in wide rows. I know it is bin-run, but it will still perform better in an environment similar to the one the parent lines were selected in.)

As for tillage I would consider a mold-board plow. Will kill all the perennial broadleaves that the Roundup doesn't get. Make sure your soil temp is up to at least 10 degrees Celcius. (50 degrees Farenheit.) With no seed treatment you want to make sure it gets out of the ground as fast as possible. I don't mind the idea of pre-emerge chem. In the Roundup Ready world we live in those programs get cheaper every year, and will help you maximize the amount of useable biomass you produce. The amount of feed you get for the investment in the chemical and the spray will more than pay for itself.

We grew 125 bu corn with spring plowing, no fert, no manure a few years ago. Only works because of the health of the soil and a history of forages and manure application. I can't comment on the bin-run thing specifically, keep us posted.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Just offset, drill it (May 23) and leave it. 10 tons to the acre come October 6. :cowboy:

"Cheap" seed here is $165 per bag...
I don't mind some grass in the stand but cattle won't eat lambsquarter and we have lots of that.
I can justify plowing a sod bound field to grow about 7 tons of grazing corn per acre to pop yearlings with. I think the risk and cost show up the next year with trying to get an improved hay crop seeding to catch.
Is "offset" two passes with a wide row corn planter?

 

[Stocker Steve]

10 tons to the acre come October 6. :cowboy:

I have seen corn planted by the Birchdale landing, and I always wondered what they did with it. I did not see any corn when I wandered over to the Elmo Hardware to buy a pre leased Yamaha.

 

[fargus]

I think by offset he means a heavy offset disc. That's what I took from it.

 

[Aaron]

Just offset, drill it (May 23) and leave it. 10 tons to the acre come October 6. :cowboy:

"Cheap" seed here is $165 per bag...
I don't mind some grass in the stand but cattle won't eat lambsquarter and we have lots of that.
I can justify plowing a sod bound field to grow about 7 tons of grazing corn per acre to pop yearlings with. I think the risk and cost show up the next year with trying to get an improved hay crop seeding to catch.
Is "offset" two passes with a wide row corn planter?

Cheap seed here is $140/bag. The Pioneer Hybrid they used was $180/bag. I am referring to a heavy offset disc.

10 tons to the acre come October 6. :cowboy:

I have seen corn planted by the Birchdale landing, and I always wondered what they did with it. I did not see any corn when I wandered over to the Elmo Hardware to buy a pre leased Yamaha.

Emo Hardware I don't think Sesame Street has diversified quite that much to include hardware stores yet. :lol:

You should have come a little further (20 min to the west) for a visit.

These neighbours are the first to take corn to a whole new level in this area. Nobody thought you could grow corn around here before, would call you crazy. Talked to him a couple days ago and he is planning to plant 70 acres this year, which will feed (corn silage) his 125 cows for at least 200 days, cutting hay out of the equation and resulting in big savings for him. You go 6 miles to the south (Birchdale) and corn is popular. But nobody over the age of 50+ years thought it was possible on this side 3 years ago.

 

[SRBeef]

I have purchased conventional seed corn in the past for grazing. Now I am thinking about going really low on inputs due to the current price of seed. The plan is:

spray out with Roundup once the soil warms up
spread manure and work it up
drill in bin run corn
apply preemergent

Any tips on seeding with a grain drill and bin run corn???

I have some reservations about the "bin run" seed and planting it with a grain drill.

First of all seed: corn is generally planted with a corn planter at about 25-30,000 plants per acre. A bag of seed corn has 80,000 seeds in it or just about 3 acres. So at $180./bag your seed cost to use new seed is about $60/acre. Hybrid corn is that - a hybrid. It does not replicate itself when planted. If you have a non hybrid corn it may be acceptable but there is not much of that around.

Corn if not singulated and spaced properly will not set ears. If the seed depth is not controlled fairly well it doesn't emerge uniformly nor pollinate very well. A grain drill basically dumps handfuls of seed at a time and they are not good at controlling corn seed deptha nd closure. There is a reason folks own planters AND drills.

There is a reason that even with newer style grain drills/air seeders (which singulate much better than the cup style you are probably planning on using) have not caught on for commercial corn production.

If you are going to all the trouble to set aside land to raise corn , applying manure, disking and spraying it (grass in the row early has a severe effect on corn yields) why not do it right.

The way you are describing your low cost system you may just end up with bunches of 3-4 ft high corn silage mixed with thick weeds and almost no grain.

I would suggest your modifying your plan to include purchased seed and hire a neighbor with a corn planter to plant it. Otherwise you may just be wasting your time and efforts.

For the value of the grazing corn can provide it is reasonable to spend 60./acre on seed and maybe another 10-12/acre to hire someone with a planter to plant it for you, singulated, spaced and at consistent seed depth (1.5-2"). jmho.

Jim

 

[Stocker Steve]

My cattle love short corn and foxtail grass but certainly the yield will be less. If they harvest 50% of the DM then I will then need about 2 tons per acre more to break even... So basicly I would be betting on good rains.

The dairy optimizers use a corn/alfalfa rotation to maximize return per acre. The issue here is we are in a marginal row crop area - - so even though the establishment cost are almost the same as central Iowa we get a fraction of the yield. So my optimum with today' input costs and $3 corn is a 6 year rotatation (1 yr corn, 1 seeding year, 4 forage production years). In better cropping areas a 4 year rotation is pretty common. The only way I can rationalize any rotation is by running stockers. I tried leader/follower on second cutting alfalfa last summer. Way too much protein so I need to go back to a little August grazing corn or oats... We can grow good oats for a much lower input cost.

Is hay and pasture rent so high that Emo (they gave me the hat to check my spelling against) cow/calf guys can justify becoming corn farmers???? This sounds like a frost sensitive hobby.

 

[Aaron]

Is hay and pasture rent so high that Emo (they gave me the hat to check my spelling against) cow/calf guys can justify becoming corn farmers???? This sounds like a frost sensitive hobby.

Hay and pasture is cheap all around here, to rent and buy. But, two things come into the equation: travel and yield. Traveling a few miles to cut/bale hay or pasture cows cuts into a person's time too much. We can pretty much count on 2 tons to the acre yield here (on the poorest of fields) on any given year, but it still can't come close to corn yield. The key is too keep it low input. For me and the neighbour, its all about maxing out the production of the land, rather than acquire more of it. Land is cheap, so it's a bad habit for most around here to just buy older/established land, rather than improving their current holdings. He and I are big fans of the dozer blade and a good fire (although he has cleared a lot more land in the last ten years than I have). If I can pencil low-input grazing corn, I will be shifting away from hay as well.

As far as frost sensitive, you just plant with the times. His first year trying out corn, the neighbour didn't plant till June 23 and then harvested Oct 24. It took that long to get clear of the frost nights as that spring our last frost was June 6. :cowboy:

 

[SRBeef]

My cattle love short corn and foxtail grass but certainly the yield will be less. If they harvest 50% of the DM then I will then need about 2 tons per acre more to break even... So basicly I would be betting on good rains.

The dairy optimizers use a corn/alfalfa rotation to maximize return per acre. The issue here is we are in a marginal row crop area - - so even though the establishment cost are almost the same as central Iowa we get a fraction of the yield. So my optimum with today' input costs and $3 corn is a 6 year rotation (1 yr corn, 1 seeding year, 4 forage production years). In better cropping areas a 4 year rotation is pretty common. The only way I can rationalize any rotation is by running stockers. I tried leader/follower on second cutting alfalfa last summer. Way too much protein so I need to go back to a little August grazing corn or oats... We can grow good oats for a much lower input cost.

Is hay and pasture rent so high that Emo (they gave me the hat to check my spelling against) cow/calf guys can justify becoming corn farmers???? This sounds like a frost sensitive hobby.

I don't know where in MN you are but almost all of MN can raise very decent corn with todays methods and hybrids especially if its for grazing and does not need to get down to 14% moisture or be dried. Corn for grain takes combines carts tractors trucks, dryers, bins, etc. I get to North Dakota on my day job. There is a lot of VERY good corn raised in ND, even to the Minot area and the southern edge on Manitoba these days.

This is a long discussion to do it right that I can't get into but let me just say that another alternative to these traditional and complex rotations is to just raise continuous corn. Corn is just a big grass plant. With newer methods and a bit of relatively low cost (but not cheap) equipment we can take an area and make it a more or less permanent corn grazing field.

WARNING - please DO NOT graze growing corn in the field in August!!!! You will kill your cows for nitrate poisoning. Silage is different. In a few days the nitrates convert etc. Use the oats or better yet use clover for august grazing. Even the clover should be in a mix. Careful the oats don't shade the clover out. I don't like grazing oats for that reason - stunts everything under it unless planted very thin.

Jim

edit: corn farming hobby - there are a number of Dakota cattlemen that have switched a lot of their operation from cattle to growing corn for grain simply because it is more profitable to raise corn with todays improved methods than to lose money raising cattle. It is their income, not a hobby.

 

[novaman]

I agree with SRB. Many times trying to get by cheaper will come back to bite ya. If your going to spend some money to do it you may as well spend a bit more and do it right. Your bin run seed could spell lots of trouble for you. Before I even filled the drill I would do a germ test AND be certain there are no patented genes like RR in the corn. It is illegal to plant bin run corn with the RR gene. Do yourself a favor and buy decent seed. Manure will probably work for fertilizer but if you do get good yields you may end up running short on N. I just hate doing a half-*** job and hope things turn out. Set yourself up for success and you'll probably reach it.

 

[Stocker Steve]

He and I are big fans of the dozer blade and a good fire (although he has cleared a lot more land in the last ten years than I have). quote]

I don't own a dozer but I have a lot of matches and rent an excavator once a year. I have renovated a lot of ground that includes some new breaking. I learned not to look back much so do don't get depressed by all the rocks coming up.

The sad fact here is land is high compared to its productivity, and much of it is going back into hybrid popple trees to get a goverment payment for not farming...

 

[Stocker Steve]

edit: corn farming hobby - there are a number of Dakota cattlemen that have switched a lot of their operation from cattle to growing corn for grain simply because it is more profitable to raise corn with todays improved methods than to lose money raising cattle. It is their income, not a hobby.

I lived in ND for a couple years and I take my dog back every fall to humor him ND corn growers got very very lucky in 2009 with an exceptional fall.

What some folks don't factor in is the higher financial risk with today's input costs. The grain farmers deal with this by buying revenue insurance. Just be sure to at least run a worst case drought number before you start plowing sod...

 

[Douglas]

Hey, if we planted it to harvest grain and then because of weather and rookie mistakes had no choice but to graze it. Could we qualify for gov. payments?

 

[SRBeef]

Hey, if we planted it to harvest grain and then because of weather and rookie mistakes had no choice but to graze it. Could we qualify for gov. payments?

Might be a good question for a crop insurance specialist. I suspect that even if the crop is insured and adjusted, they would probably subtract some value for the grazing from the settlement. Just a guess.

Jim

 

[SRBeef]

edit: corn farming hobby - there are a number of Dakota cattlemen that have switched a lot of their operation from cattle to growing corn for grain simply because it is more profitable to raise corn with todays improved methods than to lose money raising cattle. It is their income, not a hobby.

I lived in ND for a couple years and I take my dog back every fall to humor him ND corn growers got very very lucky in 2009 with an exceptional fall.

What some folks don't factor in is the higher financial risk with today's input costs. The grain farmers deal with this by buying revenue insurance. Just be sure to at least run a worst case drought number before you start plowing sod...

I should have qualified my original statement more towards South Dakota rather than North Dakota. I am sure there are many folks reading this board that know of some former cattle operations that have switched to grain farming simply because it is more profitable to raise grain than cattle with newer corn growing technologies and current cattle prices. Note there is at least one corn grain-based ethanol plant in the Minot ND area and I believe several nearby.

When I was in the USAF many years ago, Minot meant missiles and reindeer, not corn. But things are changing. And these folks are NOT largely dependent on crop insurance since they have little historical base to work from. And as the local slogan says: "WHY NOT MINOT?"

Jim

 

[Stocker Steve]

Hey, if we planted it to harvest grain and then because of weather and rookie mistakes had no choice but to graze it. Could we qualify for gov. payments?

People that work the system always qualify - - the real question is for how many programs. Counter cyclical payments and susidized crop insurance payments and disaster payments and conservation payments are gravy for some folks.

The better livestock gamers in my area put corn in and buy the best insurance available. About 25% of the time they get a good dry crop and they hire a custom combine. Otherwise they chop most of it and LEAVE enough rows for the insurance adjuster. If you rent or buy or borrow equipment to chop corn and bag corn and feed corn it is not longer cheap feed.

The issue I have found is that the ground in my area is quite variable. About 40% is appropriate for alfalfa mix (south facing slopes), about 30% is sutable for clover mix (high meadow or north facing slope), about 5% is low RC (gumbo bog), and the rest is permanent pasture. So if I have a six year rotation with alfalfa I will have one or two paddocks of corn per year.

Corn is a great grass in the right situtation. Not a good choice for Greg Judy on his Missouri clay hills, and a somewhat limited application for me and my meadows.