knowledge of the aerodynamic properties of agricultural materials is needed in equip-ment design for operations such as pneumatic conveying in loading/unloading operations of corn silage into/from silos. while considerable information is available on seed grains, little is known about the aerodynamic behavior of corn (zea mays l.) silage. in this re-search, the weighed mean terminal velocity of...

Growing interest in corn (Zea mays L.) silage utilization on Wisconsin dairy farms may have implications for nutrient losses from agricultural lands. Increasing the silage cutting height will increase residue cover and could reduce off-site migration of sediments and associated constituents compared with conventional silage harvesting. We examined the effects of residue level and manure applica...

Three beef cattle diets were assessed for their potential to produce odorous compounds from cattle feces excreted during the growing and finishing periods. Eight pens containing 51 steers of varying proportions of Brahman and MARC III genotypes were fed either a chopped bromegrass hay diet or a corn silage diet for a 119-d growing period. After the growing period, all steers were switched to th...

T HE feeding of corn silage has long been a common practice in corn producing areas; however, the effect of cultural practices on nutritive value has received only minor attention. Some important factors are: stage of maturity (Huber, Groff and Engel, 1965), varieties (White et al., 1924), plant population (Nevens, 1951; Alexander et al., 1963) and soil fertility (Alexander et al., 1963). Since...

ince the mechanical picker-sheller has come into widespread use for harvesting field corn, farmers generally are confronted with the problem of safe storage of highmoisture shelled corn. The moisture content of field-shelled corn is often too high for direct binning, and storing such grain in regular farm bins without first lowering the moisture level is almost certain to result in spoilage. Mo...

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)-11 transformation event in two parental corn hybrids differing in date of maturity on beef and dairy cattle performance. Sixteen lactating Holstein dairy cows in replicated 4 x 4 Latin squares were assigned to four diets in a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement: Bt vs non-Bt trait and early- vs late-maturing corn...

Forages are a necessary component of diets for lactating dairy cows because they provide coarse fiber needed to optimize rumen function. However, forages alone provide insufficient nutrients to achieve high milk yield and they must be supplemented with other feed ingredients. Because forage quality is highly variable, their quality must be assessed before diets are formulated. Forages have been...

An index of forage quality, milk per ton of forage DM (Undersander et al., 1993), was developed using an energy value of forage predicted from ADF content and DMI potential of forage predicted from NDF content as its basis. The milk per ton quality index was later modified for corn silage (Schwab et al., 2003) using an energy value derived from summative equations (Schwab et al., 2003; NRC, 200...

Dairy farmers in many parts of the world rely on corn silage as a source of digestible fiber and readily fermentable energy for their cattle. In Florida, Georgia and many tropical countries, such farmers face several climatic challenges that can complicate corn silage production including temperatures that reduce the rate of photosynthesis (Crafts-Brandner and Salvucci, 2002) and reduction in p...