Silage Quality: How Is It Defined and Measured?

Corn silage is a palatable high energy, low protein forage that is used in most dairy rations across the US. The usage of corn silage has grown over the last decade. Seed companies have focused breeding activities on corn silage hybrids resulting in corn silage hybrid differences that rival other species in nutritional differences. When making decisions about the quality of corn silage, dairy producers needs can vary tremendously. If land base is limited, then total tonnage yield is extremely important or if disease pressure is high, then traits are important etc. There are many factors that affect the quality of corn silage such as chop length, packing density, etc. but the purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the nutritional quality differences of corn silage that the dairy producer should consider when making hybrid decisions and to answer some frequently asked questions about corn silage quality. Table 1 lists typical values for corn silage and includes alfalfa parameters as well for a point of comparison.