Ranking Corn Silage Hybrids

Corn hybrids for silage vary in yield and several quality traits that affect farm profitability, which is the prime criterion on which hybrids should be ranked. The partial budget approach is the only way to rank corn hybrids for silage for individual farms according to their effects on farm profits. Partial budgets consider only those costs and returns that change in response to the corn hybrids being compared and ignore those that are not affected. To rank corn hybrids for silage, partial budgets must calculate for each corn hybrid the total amount of corn silage required, the cost of growing, harvesting, storing and feeding the corn silage, supplemental feed costs, and returns from differences in milk yield. Economically important traits that must be considered include silage yield, concentrations of dry matter, neutral detergent fiber, and protein, and neutral detergent fiber digestibility. The partial budget approach allows the genetic variation among corn hybrids to be used to increase farm profits.