Not to take away from the current corn posting

[FarmboyBill]

#1 Can anybody say for sure that OP corn has more protein in the ears and stalks, OR NOT?

#2 For those who do it, Whats the largest acreage you plant useing corn you shelled from last years yield,?

#3 Whats the largest yield anybody got last year from op corn and from hybred corn?

#4 For those who have made the switch, from either direction. Why did you switch from op to hybred, or from hybred to op

#5 Does anybody chop the dry stalks to feed cows? Whats your thoughts on doing so. Is it really practical? Does it really make a good forage, or is it just something for them to chew?? Thats with and without the corn ear attached.

#6 Is there yet anybody makeing silage useing a corn binder and stationary chopper?

[chester5731]

The place I bought my OP from claimed it tested higher in protien but I plan on sending some out and having it checked. This was my first year with OP and I planted opnly 2.5 acres but I saved enough seed for 4 acres next year. I have poor soil and could only get 70-75 bu. per acre with hybrid corn planted at 28-30 thousand plants per acre. I got just over 100 bu. per acre with the OP at 22 thousand plants per acre. Many had two ears per stalk and the ears were huge. I fed the dry stalks that I cut off the end just to open up the field so I could use the picker. Man did the cows come running when they saw that stuff. The only ones making silage that way around here are the Amish.

[FarmboyBill]

WQhat bread of OP did you use? Then your saying, O and where you from? Than your saying that you got more from the op planting less seed than you did from the hybred?

Your gonna get alot of response to your posting. I would think. Ive got a Mc Cormick Deering corn binder with the elevator, tho the elevator isnt attached as yet, and wasnt when I bought it. But the binder worked great. I also got a NI Husker Shredder, and I hope to husk out the ears and save them for feed and feed the shredded stalks to cows. I got hold of a guy last spring that had op corn for sale at $30. bu. What did u pay for yours a bu?. I didnt farm and im glad I didnt due to the worst drouth since the 30s. Hope to do it next year.

[Windy in Kansas]

chester5731 Since you admit to having some poor soil I have to ask---did you ever plant the hybrid at a lower population rate?

[FarmboyBill]

Good question Windy. How ya doin.

[FarmboyBill]

Thing comes to my mind is, If he had planted hybred at the same rate as he planted the op and presumably would have got around the same returns. OK, But then, if you take the difference between the cost of op against the hybred, Then at that point is a difference in the cost of the seed appairant to make the op worth more. NOT counting the saveing in being able to replant the seed from the harvest.

Myself, I cant imagine in this day and age, farmers setting picking out enough seed to plant say, 5 to 10 acres corn. If your going to do it right, You dont just shell out enough seed through the corn sheller, bag it and your done. I was always told that one cuts off the nose and the butt of the ear and then you shell out the center, and thats what you save and plant. The rest is feed for the hogs or chickens.

[jwal10]

Yep, Grandpa hand shelled the ends and run the rest through the hand sheller. About 20 acres. We don't grow dry corn here so there isn't any equipment. Just sweet corn for the canneries. I see in cattle country some farmers make big round bales of corn stalks after combining. Some just turn the cows out in the stalks. Remember back in the day the populations were a lot less....James

[rambler]

1. Interesting question, but corn is about starch - energy - and so protien content is a lower down the list sort of idea - mix in bean meal or ddg for the protien needed? Don't mean to mis-direct your question tho!

6. I have chopped and round baled cornstalks after combining the corn. The cattle generally like the leaves and husks very well, sometimes leaving the grass or alfalfa bales and eating through the stalk bales first. They don't get enough energy from only cornstalk bales of course, but can get a lot of what they need.

Many, many acres of cornstalks were baled around here ithis fall, we had a very dry fall here. Didn't think there were that many cattle around! Some gets used for bedding, but most gets fed to cattle.

I prefer letting the cattle graze the cornatalks over winter, tho of course 'here' the snow typically gets too deep by January.

--->Paul

[Paquebot]

There's not many OP varieties which are going to even come close to matching hybrids for production. OP was all that was available until the 1940s. Records kept from 1866 to 1938 showed an average of about 25 bushels per acre for every one of those years. Manufactured fertilizers jumped the average considerably and hybrids sent the numbers off the scale.

An important point not covered by Chester were the varieties used for comparing an OP against a hybrid. There are some early hybrids which aren't going to give 250 bushels per acre and also not many OPs that will give 100. No matter since the figures show that apparently not a lot of effort was made to get much production unless it's some part of the world where corn shouldn't be expected to produce much.

As for the stalks, very few are left in the fields now. With the low-till and crop rotation, farmers want them off as soon as possible after combining to prepare the fields for next year. Some now have extra-long specialty wagons which haul 17 of the big round bales. So far, all have been going to the big dairy operations since there aren't any major steer farms in the immediate area.

Martin

[oneokie]

Something to keep in mind when comparing OP vs Hybrid corn is the fact that Hybrid corn has been designed to be planted at higher populations. The leaf growth on hybrids is more upright, requiring less space between plants. More and smaller ears does and will equate higher yields of grain, all growing conditions the same for each.

Corn grain usually has between 5%-7% protien, not a big difference when one considers that corn is usually considered an energy source in animal feed. The stalk protien can vary tremendously according to when it is harvested and how and when it is fed in relation to how long it has been harvested.

[chester5731]

I planted wapsie valley from openpollinated.com. With shipping from New York to Michigan a 50 lb bag was around $100. I never tried planting hybrid corn at a lower population. It didn't take long to pick a few hundred ears for seed. I put them in 5 gal plastic pails. One evening I sat in the shed with a hand sheller and took the round seed off the end for cow feed. I then put the ears in onion storage bags and hung them in my basement to dry some more. I will run them thru the hand crank sheller in the spring. I have not had it tested for protien yet but I took a sample to the elevater and it is 20.2% moisture with a test weight of 59.9 I was impressed enough to try it agian next year. Like anything else, ask 10 people for their opinion and you will get ten different answers no one being 100% correct.

[jwal10]

I agree, so many variables and what a person wants from their crop. Production isn't everything, inputs make a lot of difference, dirt varies widely. I grew corn (silage) right after peppermint and just let the nutrients that carried over grow the corn, then planted oats and peas for a silage crop with only a small starter fertilizer to keep the nutrients balanced for a spring corn crop again for silage the next sping, I put the needed nutrients on it but had 3 crops with little fertilizer, just 1 application of manure....James

[Paquebot]

In this comparison between OP and hybrids, the deck was stacked from the beginning due to the varieties used. Although 99.9% of corn varieties will run around 7% protein, Wapsie Valley may be as high as 11%. You pay the piper in the end since such types are heavy feeders.

Martin

[FarmboyBill]

The guy I talked to here, said that he had first raised hybred corn and paid over $120 a bu. He got that many bu an acre. Next year, he raised the op corn. It didnt do nothing for him , and he surmised to me that it was cause it came from the NE, I forgot where, and that it wasnt acclamated for Okla. He planted it again LAST year and got 100bu acre. He thought that he could hit 110 this year. Course, that was before the drouth hit. Thats at $30 by last years or this springs prices.

Rambler If it was you telling me that my placeing fert on top the ground over the planted row wouldnt work, that it had to be placed 4in to the side, and 4 in deeper. It took me a heckofa long time to figure out how to do this, as the planter when out of the ground just barely clears the ground. I finally figured out to use my lift on my 34 Case. I built a tongue for it that I can put on and take off. It both raises and lowers way higher and lower than the tractor drawbar. Ill just have to remove the drawbar when planting.

I had to make 2 schovels for the purpose. TSC nor orschilans, or Atwoods, has them anymore. Wasnt no problem tho. I had the shanks, and luckily there were braces on the side of the drop that when the shanks were set outside and clamped on like the old rolling coulters on plows, mounted just right.