By Kim Ricardo
The incidence of volunteer corn in subsequent crops tends to be greater following periods of drought. Drought stress can weaken corn stalks, making them more prone to lodging and dropping ears. Dropped ears can potentially germinate and pose significant disease risk to subsequent crops, potentially attracting pests like corn rootworm beetles and serving as the source of inoculum. Utilizing livestock to graze corn residue following harvest is a strategic management practice to reduce volunteer corn in the following crop, while reducing the use of herbicides.
Benefits to Utilizing Livestock
For a diversified operation, grazing corn stalks can provide additional nutritive value to maintain body condition and preserve harvested feed inventory for a few additional days depending on the quality and amount of residue available. For farming operations that do not include a livestock enterprise, renting corn stalks for grazing can provide an additional stream of income and reduce production costs by reducing herbicide needs to combat volunteer corn.
Cattle are selective grazers and typically will consume corn grain first, followed by leaves and husk, then cob, and finally corn stalks. The preference and selectivity to grain makes them a useful management tool to for utilizing spilled grain or dropped ears and potentially reducing the amount of volunteer corn emergence.
Practical Considerations
When considering grazing corn stalks as a method to reduce volunteer corn populations, there are several infrastructure considerations to make. Water availability and fencing tend to be among the greatest concerns for livestock producers. Temporary water sources and hauling in water can be relatively quick and low-impact options for water management. However, hauling water tends to be labor and time intensive which producers will need to factor into when making economic considerations. Installing permanent water sources may make more sense if grazing corn stalks becomes an annual tradition. Temporary fencing solutions such as solar and electric fence can address fencing concerns. Virtual fencing technology would also serve as a low-labor method of strategic grazing management on corn residue and could potentially improve utilization and reduce labor inputs.
Source : sdstate.edu