Due to late planting dates and a cooler than normal growing season this year, many corn fields will probably be harvested for silage. There is even great potential for corn in these fields to be too immature for proper corn silage harvest. If already harvested, then 10 times. For most crops, forage quality and value decreases with maturity, that is fiber levels increase and digestible energy decreases.
Corn is somewhat unique in that quality increases with maturity.
In corn silage most of the digestible energy is in the grain portion. Immature corn will have a lower proportion of grain in the silage. Use MILK91 to calculate the milk per acre and milk per ton that could potentially be produced from immature corn silage. The relationship between kernel maturity and silage yield and quality is shown in Table 1. The value of the corn silage should be adjusted accordingly.