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Maintaining The Interest In Maize
Over 100 people attended the recent ‘Getting the Most from Forage Maize’ event held at SAC Crichton Royal Farm. It attracted those farmers already growing the crop, some thinking of growing it and representatives from the trade.
They heard from Hugh McClymont, SAC Crichton Royal Farm Manager, John Hardy, Grainseed, Sam Shine, Samco and John Heaphy, Limagrain.
Hugh McClymont explained the importance of forage maize as a major component in the ration fed to the Crichton dairy herd and showed some novel ways of feeding maize. Hugh has been growing the crop since 1993 and was able to give detailed feedback on the variety demonstration plots established in 2009 and to be repeated in 2010.
John Hardy representing Grainseed, a seed company marketing maize in SW Scotland, described how modern varieties were being bred to reach yields of up to 17 ton/dry matter per ha with yields of 30% starch level. This is important to achieve maximum benefits for dairy cows. John also described work being evaluated on a variety able to produce 2 mature cobs per plant rather than 1 with a possible 70% increase in starch levels.
Samco are producers of the ‘Samco’ system of specialist equipment for planting maize seed under biodegradable plastic. Sam Shin explained how the system is used worldwide where plastic warms the soil for early drilling and an earlier maturing crop. It suits northern latitudes.
John Heaphy from Limagrain, another international seed company, explained how fast-moving the maize breeding programme is. John also talked about varieties grown on the Crichton site that performed extremely well during the challenging 2009 growing season.