To Chop...or Not...

This is the time of year that every farmer has a big decision to make...

To chop corn silage...or not!

Our silos are nearly empty, and the corn is almost ready to chop for corn silage...but not quite.   A lot of our Amish neighbors have begun chopping.  You see their binders and wagons slowly making their way through the fields.  The silage is a little green, but the cows need to be fed!

This week we took some samples from our fields, ran them through the chopper, and tested the moisture level.  In our small silos (12 x 50) the silage should be between 65% -70%.  If the silage is too dry it doesn't have enough weight to pack well, and the air will spoil the silage.  Spoiled silage is trouble!  Silage that is too wet isn't good either, but better a little too wet than too dry.

This is one of the fields that we tested. It will probably be the first one that we will chop here at home...

An interesting perspective from inside the field...

The ears are large and the silk is dry and brown...

This is what we call the milk line.  Break the ear in half, and look at the white part of the kernel.  When the corn is ready for chopping, the milk line is about halfway down the kernel.  This ear shows the milk line only about 1/4 of the way down.  There's probably plenty of moisture there yet...

After the sample stalks were run through the chopper, they looked like this...



We took the samples from two fields for moisture testing.  They tested 69% and 70%...still a little bit wet, just like Jim suspected.  But it won't be long...typically the moisture drops about .5% per day, and with the rain we've been having, it probably won't be any faster than that.  So...we've lined up the chopper to come next week. 

Once those silos are filled, it will be a weight off our shoulders.  Trying to get it just right can be stressful...the weather...lining up the chopper...everything needs to fall together just right.

It seems like just a week or so ago that we were struggling to get the corn planted with all the rain we had in the spring...and here we are harvesting already!  Where did the summer go?!

Linking to Farmgirl Friday at Deborah Jean's Dandelion House