You are in the Energy Business!
In recent weeks, there has been an announcement that BMR corn silage was going away. Of course, that is not totally true, only for that company. This wasn’t a decision made by nutritionists, or even by the company’s dealers, but by the corporate board of directors. I would guess that the board of directors do not feed cows or understand what NDF digestibility is. They look at a different set of numbers.
Livestock need nutrients every day in order to grow, produce milk, lay eggs, and; just to survive. These nutrients include energy, protein, vitamins and minerals. If any of the nutrients needed each day are limited, growth and/or production will be limited to the lowest amount nutrient. Based on amount needed each day, energy is the largest need. This is true for all ages and classes of livestock. Ruminants get a large amount of nutrients as a result of what goes on in the rumen. The rumen microbes working in a healthy rumen can digest fiber, which enables cows and sheep and goats and lots of other animals to consume forage that humans could not digest. Neither can pigs or chickens.
We also know, that the more digestible the fiber is, the more energy we can get from it. Specifically, the higher the NDF digestibility, the more energy we get we get from the forage. And, we also get more digestible protein. And, we get more of the minerals. And, best of all; we save money on our feed costs and have healthier animals.
More digestible NDF is always better. Always. We have the tools to measure and balance diets with high quality forage. High quality forage allows us to use more forage, or even more accurately, more NDF in the diet. Digestible NDF can come from different kinds of forage. It does not matter which forage species it comes from, the NDF digests into acetate and other VFA’s (volatile fatty acids, from digesting cellulose and hemicellulose). These VFA’s are then used to build glucose molecules. Glucose is energy! Forages with the BMR genes produce forage with lower lignin and more digestible NDF. Not only in corn for corn silage, but also in sorghums, sorghum/sudan grass and millet. As part of a total farm forage plan, these forages offer opportunities to lower feed costs and fill in gaps of forage supply. The 59B70 BMR corn silage offers tremendous yield and top NDF digestibility in the stover part of the plant. But it also brings along highly digestible corn grain which adds to the yield of corn silage tons/acre. Utilizing summer annuals following winter triticale or when turning over a older alfalfa stand, we not only can bring in forage supply, but also allow options for manure spreading.