Video tour of my Launceston Maize trial plots.

Here it is, there are other clips on my youtube site too, more to follow.

Generally, these trials were very good this year, soil structure improvements carried out early to improve root development, the application of chicken manure as well as getting a good fine tilth all helped with the establishment and early growth which is vital with maize. Sometimes, the importance of leaf area index is forgotten, it is vital with maize and this is where vigour comes in as it is this ability to keep growing in less than ideal situations that means that when peak sunlight and heat units arrive in June and July you want a plant with a big enough leaf area to be able to absorb it all and to grow quickly! Beethoven is a variety that is able to do this.

Maize Trial Pt 2

Fresh weight yields for the varieties was as follows;

Acclaim 14.8t/ac
LG 3181 17.8t/ac
Lorado 18.4t/ac
LG3193 18.9t/ac
Beethoven 22.3t/ac
Nescio 22.7t/ac
Award 19. 2t/ac

Starch yields were a bit more interesting as can be seen from some of the cob photo's below and didn't follow the pattern of yield above in some instances.




Acclaim (4 rows in middle above) being the earliest to maturity had the highest dry matter (36%), but lowest ratio of starch to fresh weight, even though the plants were much shorter than the rest by a good 12 to 30 inches. Award had the lowest dry matter and was only at 22% DM when harvested.

Acclaim on left, LG3181 middle.


Whole cob weight (sheaves removed) averages as follows:
Acclaim 210 grams
LG 3181 270 grams
Lorado 270 grams
LG3193 236 grams
Beethoven 258 grams
Nescio 268 grams
Award 220 grams

What is interesting to note is that Beethoven and Nescio both combined very high yields in tonnage terms with a good average cob weight and when analysed gave readings of 32 %DM/34% Starch and 29%DM and 33% Starch respectively.


Beethoven left, Lorado right of knife.

LG3181 and Lorado both surprised with quick dry down, large cobs and high starch contents, facts which have been born out by similar merchant trials at Tregony where LG3181 had the highest starch return/ac of all varieties on trial and Lorado the highest return at a big trial at Launceston. This is also consistent with national trials for grain maize where both these varieties have come top for grain yield vs DM, both yielding over 8.4 ton/ha at 15 % moisture content.

Lorado and LG3181 were also both grown in a trial a mile down the road with Kingdom and both outyielded it by some margin, with Lorado doing the best of the three. This variety wiill be covered more in the section on grain maize where it performed well, even though the weather did wreak havoc.

Nescio Monster Crop Update.

According to the contractor, the field yielded 23.5 ton/ac, the analysis has come back with the following figures: Starch 30%, Dry matter 28% (fresh sample) and 32% Starch, 30% Dry matter taken from halfway down the clamp 14 days after ensiling. Not a bad result really, with a pH of 4 the cows are tucking in to it and milking well!

Monster crop of Nescio forage maize!

Nescio is a class 5 variety that has been on the list for a long time, since 2001 and is such a stable variety that it is used as a control variety.One of it's characteristics is to produce large cobs with big grain, making it a good grain variety if situations allow it to go that far.This crop was harvested on the 29th October near Sticker, St Austell. Contractor was surprised too, really made his machine grunt! Estimated yield was well over 20 ton/ac, every line and a third of the way back was a full trailer load!

Knife is 4.5 inches, unfortunately the cob is pointing towards me when I took it, never-the-less, it was a good 9 inches in length.

Maize under plastic. Trial at Sticker, St Austell, part 3

LG3193 cob compared to a Beethoven cob picked a few days earlier at Bude. 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.

Maize under plastic. Trial at Sticker, St Austell, part 2

LG 3193 in top and Nescio in bottom picture, alongside Justina. Pictures taken 3rd July. Interesting to see how nutrient deficiencies are now starting to appear in the crop (even though the fields were lagged with FYM and slurry pre drilling), because of the inability to put placement ferliser down when the plastic is being laid. With maize not being a scavenger of nutrients, this is a common shortcoming with resultant loss of productivity and yield, even though the added cost is over £100/ac compared to ordinary forage maize.