OUTLOOK, Sask.-Saskatchewan’s participation in the Alberta Corn Committee trials for the first time this year reflects a growing interest in the crop.
Previously these tests, designed by irrigators, researchers and extension specialists to find the most appropriate corn for irrigated grain and silage production for a specific region, have been held in Alberta.
Interest in corn also overwhelmed organizers of the Canada-Saskatchewan Irrigation Development Centre’s Saskatchewan corn selection and silage day in Outlook Sept. 11. Double the number expected showed up for a day of seminars, demonstrations, exhibits and alternative crop options.
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Saskatchewan corn producers experienced a strong growing year, helped by the heat that the crop favours.
Terry Hog of the Irrigation Development Centre said there is a lot of potential for grain and silage corn production, especially in irrigated areas around Lake Diefenbaker and in southern Saskatchewan.
He said corn needs 2,300 heat units, and Outlook saw 2,364 units this year. It also needs a lot of water, and the ACC tests at Outlook received about 480 millimetres of water from the pivots this year.
Results of ACC corn trials will be available at www.albertacorn.com this fall, and results from the Outlook centre’s three-year trials of 17 hybrid varieties will be presented at meetings later this year.
“The information will help producers choose those varieties you would grow on an Outlook farm,” Hog said.
Brian Beres, ACC corn trial co-ordinator, said the new sites of Outlook and Lacombe, Alta., could be in the trials again next year.
“There is a wider range of hybrids for shorter-growing season locations now,” he said of the increasing interest in corn. The growth corresponds with a rise in silage production generally, he added.
Les Bohrson said there are about 10,000 acres of corn in Saskatchewan.
Corn can produce up to 20 tons of good quality silage per acre as compared to barley’s top end of 17.
Bohrson advised producers to wait until the “milk” is largely gone from the corn cobs before making silage.
“If you can leave it out another 10 days, that’s another ton of dry matter,” he said.
Neil McLeod, a seed specialist with Prairie Seeds, said the advent of effective herbicides that don’t have long residual effects has allowed more producers to try corn.
“People don’t want to commit to more than one year.”
He said corn acres have slowly increased over the last five years, mirroring a shift to silage from baling as cattle herds grow larger.
“As that increases, so will the corn acreage,” he said. “It becomes more economical to put up your own silage.”
He said there is little corn grown for grain, but surging amounts for winter grazing projects.
Farmer Gerald Follick of Outlook uses a 45-acre standing corn crop to feed his cattle from November to March. He accomplishes it by keeping his 230 head on three-quarters of an acre at a time and moving them every two days with portable electric fences.
It costs him 50 to 95 cents a day to feed one cow. Swath grazing might be cheaper but would not sustain the herd as long as the standing corn, he added.
Follick said the animals clean up the corn to within a few centimetres of the ground.
“They go for the cobs, then go back and clean up the rest later.”
Animals have access to water and fenced sleeping areas away from the corn at night to prevent crop trampling.
Manure adds nutrition to the soil, which he cultivates easily in the spring before seeding. Corn can be sown on the same field for successive years, he added.
Another grower, Rick Swenson of Baildon, Sask., feeds his animals this way for 65 cents a day.
“They will overload a bit,” said Swenson, who supplements their diet with some hay to keep protein levels up.
He moves hay around the field to attract cattle to new grazing spots, which help spread their manure.
