Question for you 'real' farmers

[AlanB]

My wifes family in Germany does the corn for the dairy cows the same way.

You should see the looks on their faces when we put corn on the table. (we must be really poor to have to be eating the cow food) although now, 20 years later, they kind of enjoy it.

The other part I always found intruiging is the cutter to pull the silage out of the silage trough and bring it to the cows.

Kind of looks like a big carryall with a solid bottom, then for lack of a better term a square chainsaw thing with open chain.

You raise the chain thing up about 8' high. Back into the silage stack, engage the cutter and it descends while spinning this chain saw thing through the stack.

I am typing and typeing but just can't seem to describe how scary that thing always is too me.

Anyway, it is also funny when the family comes over and sees the corn going brown in the fields and they start getting excited because it has not been harvested yet, and everyone knows that it must be harvested green.

 

[Grrrr]

My wifes family in Germany does the corn for the dairy cows the same way.

You should see the looks on their faces when we put corn on the table. (we must be really poor to have to be eating the cow food) although now, 20 years later, they kind of enjoy it.

The other part I always found intruiging is the cutter to pull the silage out of the silage trough and bring it to the cows.

Kind of looks like a big carryall with a solid bottom, then for lack of a better term a square chainsaw thing with open chain.

You raise the chain thing up about 8' high. Back into the silage stack, engage the cutter and it descends while spinning this chain saw thing through the stack.

I am typing and typeing but just can't seem to describe how scary that thing always is too me.

Anyway, it is also funny when the family comes over and sees the corn going brown in the fields and they start getting excited because it has not been harvested yet, and everyone knows that it must be harvested green.

I guess you mean something like this :



Our neighbours use something like this :



Does the same job.

 

[jinman]

Very different. I'll let some of the real farmers tell you about it, but one thing I notice right away from the picture you posted is that the corn is all green. You never see corn harvested around here until the stalks are completely dry and brown. Usually that's sometime in late September or October. They started in late August this year, due to heat and drought.

As I understand it, they want the kernels as dry as possible before harvesting.

Shawn, I was driving through Southern Indiana and Northern Ohio yesterday. I'd say that 90% of the corn was ready for harvest (dry stalks). As I approached Pennsylvania, I saw more corn that will be ready towards the end of the month or early October as you say. Lots of soybeans too...

In Texas, you see lots of grain crops growning, but I was shocked to see only corn and soybeans with some vinyards as we approached NY State.

 

[AlanB]

Grrrrrr, yeah, the thing on the top is what it is, but there are no guards around the chainsaw thing that cuts it out......

Always scared me running it (which was not often)

They said I was always too slow

Thanks for finding that picture.

 

[dooleysm]

Right now there's alot more corn out of the fields than in it around here. They've started harvesting soybeans now too, which are generally a bit later than corn.

My pond is down so low now that my floating dock has bottomed out and one of the barrels has floated out from under it. That's going to be an interesting process to retrieve that barrel and get it back under the dock when the water comes up (if it ever does!).

 

[Birdhunter1]

Something interesting I found out this past winter was when those corn stalks are baled and fed to cattle the heat created from the digestion process helps keep them warm. The farmer telling me this said there is not much nutrient content in the bales of stalks but it is so fibrous that it creates more heat while digesting. He also said they often coat the stalks with molasses so the cows will munch then up more readily.

 

[dooleysm]

I took my son to the babysitter this morning and noticed a couple more fields where they had baled the corn stalks. My wife's uncle is a farmer and he confirms that lots of guys around here are doing that this year, as everyone is wondering what they're going to feed their cattle this winter. Actually, there was an article in the local paper about this and they quoted the wife's uncle directly.

Could work out well for us, as we're running low on freezer beef right now, but I'd rather have rain than save a few bucks on beef.

 

[Kendall69]

Don't forget corn stalks are used around Halloween for decorating. Florists, Resorts, Hotels etc. use them for Halloween events, cost about $1.00 Ea.

 

[dooleysm]

These bales do not contain decoration grade cornstalks.

I was out in Boston last year for work at this time and went to this kind of farmers market type place for lunch. I was amazed to see that they were selling individual stalks of corn for decorating purposes for $5!

Around here, and I'm sure where many of you guys live, you could talk to any farmer around and he'd happily let you fill your truck with corn stalks for $5.