Will you have enough forage until next harvest? Drought in the Southwest, late planting, delayed harvest and flooding all contributed to limit current forage supplies across various areas of the country. Dr. St- Pierre, in the December 2011 Buckeye Dairy News, states that “effective NDF prices are historically high, 4 cents per lb over the six-year average.” What strategies can be used to make the most of forage availability?

“Corn grain is a seed first, then a feed,” to paraphrase Pat Hoffman, professor at University of Wisconsin (UW). The starch in corn seed contains energy the seed uses to sprout and grow. The energy (starch) is protected for overwintering by a coating of zein (prolamin) protein. The zein is resistant to digestion by rumen bacteria, which must break through and degrade the protein coating to access the starch.

Optimum forage quality is critical with grain, commodity and forage prices at historic highs. Relative feed value (RFV) was a ranking tool useful in the past. It incorporates ADF and NDF to estimate intake and digestion.

Using ration modeling programs that evaluate multiple carbohydrate fractions and their digestibility enables us to increase income over feed cost (IOFC). Corn prices are over $6 per bu and predicted to be steady to higher.