W. P. Weiss1
The Ohio State University Department of Animal Sciences
A high-oil corn and a conventional hybrid were grown for silage. A portion of each field was harvested with a conventional silage chopper and the other portion with a chopper equipped with a kernel-processing unit. The high-oil silage had higher concentrations of fatty acids and crude protein than the conventional hybrid. Feed intake was not different among diets, but cows fed high-oil silage produced 2.3 lb/day more milk than cows fed the conventional silage. Processing had little effect on production for cows fed high-oil silage but increased milk production 2.2 lb/day for cows fed the conventional hybrid. High-oil corn silage had about 4% more available energy than the conventional hybrid. Processing increased TDN of the conventional hybrid by 8% but had no effect on the TDN of the high-oil corn silage.
1 For more information, contact at: The Ohio State University, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, 1680 Madison Avenue, Wooster OH 44691, 303-263-3622, fax 330-263-3791, e-mail: weiss.6@osu.edu