Effect of Maturity of Corn Silage at Harvest on the Performance of Feeder Heifers

VARIOUS criteria have been used in order to determine the proper time of harvesting corn silage. Maximum yield of dry matter (Johnson et al., 1966) and of digestible energy (Johnson and McClure, 1967) have been reported between the dent and glazed stages. Gay (1966) and Keeney et al. (1967) found that the late dent-hard dough stage gave maximum dry matter yields. However, Pratt, Conrad and Triplett (1964) measured no differences in dry matter yield between the late milk-early dough stage and the well-dented stage. Geasler, Henderson and Hawkins (1967) reported a decrease in dry matter yield with increasing maturity. Noller et al. (1963) found maximum dry matter consumption to occur with the very early dent stage, Huber, Graf and Engel (1963) and Gay (1966) in the hard dough stage, while Geasler et al. (1967), Bryant, Huber and Blaser (1965) and Johnson et al. (1965) showed that it increased with increasing maturity.