The photo's below show some of the advantages of growing maize under plastic, it does produce an earlier crop, it should produce more starch per acre as well due to the compensatory effect of the lower plant population (38,000/ac) being transferred into larger average cob size, and hence higher starch yield per plant.
However, you need to have big plants in the first place if you want to get the yield as well, it seems costly to plant maize like this, if you are only going to get 8-10t/ac of material! The maths doesn't stack up, £52/ton as opposed to £22/ton for normal forage maize...and this before rent payment.
Another issue with maize-under-plastic is that as the plant grows it can drag the plastic up with it, as seem below, which when it comes to cutting, gets dragged into the forager, chopped and contaminates the silage. Wonder what the poor cow/animal thinks when it has bits of plastic going into its rumen.
Notice the Eyespot starting to appear on the leaves.
Plastic riding up bottom nodes.
Eyespot! Also look at the LG3193 cob size, compared to the recommended variety in the next door row. These pictures taken 1st September, fields opposite side of this valley had been completely wiped out by Eyespot, crop disced in.
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