While oats and barley are most commonly used for silage production in Alberta, all cereal grains are suitable for silage.
“The yield and quality of the silage will depend upon species, varieties, production practices such as soil fertility, stage of maturity at harvesting time and of course environmental conditions such as precipitation received during the growing season,” said Harvey Yoder, forage crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture in Lac La Biche.
Before deciding what cereal crop to use for silage production, consideration should be given to the class of livestock consuming the silage, soil type, soil nutrient level, and local demonstration and research results, he said.
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If most of the silage will be fed to beef cows, selection of a cereal crop providing the greatest amount of dry matter is likely more important than quality. If the silage crop will be used to background calves or in a dairy ration, quality might be of a greater concern.
“Soil types are also a factor when selecting a species,” said Yoder, adding that under cool, wet conditions and soils with a pH level below six, oats or triticale will generally have higher yields than barley.
“Seeding cereal crops for silage in soils with high fertility, including heavily-manured fields, may require the use of cereals with a higher lodging resistance or a mixture that includes a semi-dwarf barley variety to keep the crop standing. Spring triticale or semi-dwarf barley generally have good lodging resistance.”
In grey-wooded soils, oats often will provide the highest total dry matter yield. However, spring triticale sometimes yields more than oats under these conditions.
Foothill is a forage-type oat variety with good dry matter yields, but has a thinner stem, which results in poor lodging resistance when compared to other oat varieties. Also worthy of consideration are AC Mustang, Waldern, Grizzly and Cascade.
“One option producers could consider is to grow a variety that has strong demand in the pony or milling oat markets so that the option is also available to harvest as grain,” he said.
“Mixing a barley variety with an oat variety will not necessarily increase yields but it will increase quality of the silage produced.”
Sebee and CDC Dolly are two-row barley varieties that have consistently yielded higher than other barley varieties with good quality in trials around Westlock and Bonnyville.
Under high fertility and rainfall, Sebee seeded by itself lodged easily, but when mixed with a semi-dwarf variety, such as CDC Earl or Tukwa, lodging resistance was improved.
Semi-dwarf barley varieties may have lower dry matter production when seeded by themselves, but have higher digestibility levels than other barley varieties.
Other barley varieties to consider are tall growing feed type barleys. Under high fertility where lodging may be problem, semi-dwarf varieties to consider include Kasota, Tukwa, Duke and CDC Earl.
“Advantages for using spring triticale include superior lodging resistance and later maturity to help spread out harvesting time when dealing with large acres,” said Yoder.
Triticale can be used in crop rotations to break leaf disease problems that can occur when growing barley year after year. Dry matter production is generally higher in most areas of the province, but protein levels can be slightly lower and fibre levels slightly higher when compared to barley.
Triticale could be used in mixtures with barley to help with lodging problems. Sometimes seed availability may be a problem, particularly in the northern part of the province. Varieties to consider are Wapiti, AC Certa and AC Alta.
The CPS wheat varieties have produced higher dry matter yields than the hard red spring wheat varieties. Very few quality results are available. Again CPS wheat varieties may help in crop rotation to break the disease problems with barley.
“For those individuals wishing to produce a higher quality silage, peas – particularly the forage type, late-maturing peas – can be added with a spring cereal,” he said.
“Adding peas will generally reduce the total dry matter production, but protein levels are increased by three to four percent and fibre levels are reduced when compared to a pure cereal crop.”
