Annual corn silage harvest prediction hosted by Mapleline Farm and Poulin Grain
It’s not a lightsaber, but it’s close. John Winchell of Alltech Global Technical Support Expert uses a handheld NIR infrared mobile technology sensor to measure when dairy farmers should harvest their corn silage. Like many superheroes, he lives in New York but travels round the world, assisting dairy farmers, making their lives easier and allowing them to more efficiently bring in the corn.
On Aug. 26, Poulin Grain and Mapleline Farm in Hadley, MA, hosted an annual event where dairy farmers were invited to bring their cornstalks for their content to be measured with the NIR infrared sensor to predict the best time for harvest.
Poulin Grain invited dairy farmers bring to five to eight plants out of every field to get a normal representation of their fields.
“We run it through the chipper. With the infrared machine I track, look at the dry matter, the starch of the plant. By the end of lunch or in a few days, we let them know when their corn is ready to harvest,” said Winchell. “We used to run it through the chipper and let it dry.”
Using the NIR sensor, they don’t have to wait for the corn to dry. In fact, the corn’s moisture content is one of the measurements used to predict an optimal harvest date.
He has been using this technology for more than 15 years. Having used many different NIR sensors, he brought two to the event.
Mother Nature still is a fickle mistress. Have the NIR sensor measurements changed the days needed for the growing season? “It depends on the growing season – sometimes earlier, sometimes later,” said Winchell. “Almost always, people don’t realize till they do this test when they need to harvest.”
Corn tassels were also measured to determine peak harvest time. “We’ve learned by monitoring corn tassels from the time of their emergence to the point of ideal maturity to establish time for harvest,” said Mike St. Onge, a nutritionist used by Mapleline Farm for 10 years.
This is the fourth or fifth year that Mapleline Farm has hosted the event along with Poulin Grain.
“They can bring up to six sacks of grain, samples from multiple fields, with different growing dates and different varieties,” said host Jessica Dizek, fifth generation farmer and co-owner of Mapleline Farm.
Dizek said, “It is very useful for measuring moisture contest, growing degree [days] and what is the best window for harvest. There are different formulas that agronomists use. We look to these calendars, how long the growing season is. We can do all the visual checks in our tool chest, how high the corn is” – but the NIR measurement has proved a critical component to give an optimal harvest date.
Over the years, she’s noticed the harvest dates have been a lot earlier due to a lot of factors: “If it’s been a really hot, rainy summer it can affect it, or if it’s been a cold, drier summer.” However, she noted that the growing days from when the corn is planted are still the same.
Having a harvest date pinpointed can make it easier to schedule the custom harvesters needed to harvest their corn. “We harvest it faster. A lot of farm operations use custom harvesters,” Dizek said. “Their equipment is a lot bigger. It can chop a lot more corn in a day’s time.” And timing is crucial.
“Here in New England, weather can change in a blink of an eye,” Dizek said. Using custom harvesters, “smaller farms don’t have to buy larger equipment; it’s an efficient way to operate. It cuts down on labor costs, not having to hire labor.”
They milk 150 Jerseys at Mapleline Farm, which spans 300 acres, some of it leased. They have their own bottling plant and produce about 2 million lbs. of milk a year. They harvest enough corn silage to fill about two and half large silos.
“We feed our cows corn silage all year long. We harvest enough to last us to next fall – a little bit of inventory to overlap, a little bit of a bumper in there, to last 13 months,” said Dizek.
About 30 to 40 dairy farmers attended the event. “It was great,” said Dizek. “John Winchell is one of the best in his field. We are lucky to have him as a resource.”
For more information, access maplelinefarm.com, poulingrain.com/services and alltech.com.
by Laura Rodley
