Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-05-28
ENSILAGE CORN.
The Influence of Variety and of Rate of
Seeding on the Yield.

The Influence of Variety and of Rate of
Seeding on the Yield.
In bulletin reporting results of ex
periments made at the Pennsylvania
State College Experiment station, the
following information is given:
''In the early days of ensilage, thick
seeding and early harvesting were the
rule. Later. when it was pointed out
that the amount of dry matter contained
In crop OF corn increased very rapidly
rs the crop matured, a reaction against
this practice set in, and at present the
general drift Of opinion is in favor of
thin seeding and of allowing the crop to
become as mature as possible. Some
authorities, indeed, say that the crop
should be grown exactly like a crop of
field corn. Fully matured corn, how
ever, is not well adapted for ensilage,
since certain degree of succulence is
required to cause the material to settle
and pack properly in the silo. With any
given variety Of corn, on the other hand,
1t has been shown that, if we harvest be-
fore the crop reaches full maturity, we
sacrifice a considerable amount of dry
matter which would otherwise have been
produced. In case it is desired to har-
vest corn while still somewhat inma-
ture, two methods suggest themselves
for counteracting this loss, namely, thick
er seeding and the use of large growing
varieties.
There is no doubt whatever that
greater gross yield can be secured in
either of these ways or by combination
OF the two 1t is claimed, however, that
this larger gross yield will contain d so
much smaller proportion Of real food
that there will be no actual gain of food,
but only of "wood and water" This,
however, has been largely a matter of
opinion. 1t has been shown by numer-
GUS experiments that thick seeding,
within moderate limits, enables us to
produce more dry matter per acre. The
digestibiGty of this dry matter, however,
that is it's content of real food, has not
hitherto been determined. The expert
ments described below were designed to
contribute some exact knowledge upon
this point.
The plan was to grow the dent variety
used here as field crop, and also large
variety which does not ordinarily ma
ture here, to seed both varieties at two
different rates and to harvest them when
they were considered fit for ensilage. 1t
was further attempted to determine the
actual yield of digestible matter per
acre by weighing the yield and deter
mining its digestibility by sheep. By
most unfortunate misunderstanding,
however, the different plats received NJ
equal amounts of fertilizer, the thick
seeded plats receiving most. 1t is not
thought that this error greatly affects
the results, but the conclusions now to
be stated must be understood as subject
to possible error on this account. Sub
Ject to this qualification the following
conclusions We're reached:
The thick seeded corn reached nearly
the same stage of maturity as the thin
seeded. Under these conditions, the use
of twenty quarts Of seed per acre gave
an average yield of Al per cent more dry
matter than was obtained by the use of
SIX and one-half quarts per acre. The
dry matter of the thick seeded corn was,
on the average of both varieties, 81 per
cent. more digestible than that of the
thin seeded corn. The thick seeded corn
produced, on the average of the two va
riet1es, AZ per cent. more digestible food
per acre than the thin seeded corn. The
larger variety did not become as mature
as the smaller, but contained fair pro-
portion of eqrs. The larger variety pro-
duced, on the average of the two rates
of seeding, 43 per cent. more dry matter
per acre than the smaller variety The
dry matter of the larger variety was, on
the average of the two rates of seeding,
81 per cent. more digestible than that Of
the smaller variety The larger variety
produced, on the average of the two rates
OF seeding, A per cent. more digestible
food per acre than did the smaller va
riety. In general the results of It's
single experiment are strongly in favor
of thicker seeding of ensilage corn than
is generally recommended and of the use
of rather large growing varieties even
when these do not fully mature.