While barley is the preferred silage crop for southern Alberta feedlots, corn silage continues to gain acres.
Most recommendations for growing silage corn come from Ontario and the United States, however, so a group of researchers designed a study to produce local information on seeding rates and row spacing for corn silage in southern Alberta.
Brian Beres and Ken Coles from the Agriculture Canada research centre in Lethbridge, along with Corny Van Dasselaar from BenchMark Seeds in Lethbridge, co-ordinated the research at the Vauxhall research station.
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In 2005, the researchers planted Roundup Ready Pioneer 39K39 corn at 15-inch and 30-inch row spacings, with five different seeding rates: 26,000, 30,000, 34,000, 38,000 and 46,000 kernels per acre.
Preliminary results from year one indicate that the 15-inch row spacing produces higher plant populations and improved yield over the 30-inch row spacing. The highest silage yields came from a seeding rate of 34,000 kernels per acre for the 15-inch spacing, while 38,000 kernels per acre or more was needed to produce the highest yields on the 30-inch spacing.
The mean yield across all seeding rates for the 15-inch row spacing was 6.24 tons per acre compared to 5.75 tons per acre for the 30-inch spacing.
The researchers said seedling mortality increased with higher seeding rates, likely due to inter-plant and possibly inter-row competition. They cautioned that because this is only the first year of the study, results should be considered preliminary.
