Sussex farmer/contractor Frans de Boer crimped 600t of maize grain last year, more than anyone else in the country. Fortunately he has a contractor Keith Parks close by with one of the very few maize headers in the UK. To ease this situation Kelvin Cave Ltd have taken on the Cressoni maize header agency so that will not be a problem. (To learn more about Cressoni please click here)
The benefits of crimping maize grain are:
- saves drying costs of £15-20 a tonne
- yields of 4-5½t an acre fresh weight
- same DM as the best wheats but higher energy
- can be harvested as late as January
Variety
Use a grain variety that will stand up 4-6 weeks after forage varieties (we suggest Caviar that came out top two years ago, but click on the seed merchant links on left to check for latest advice).
Crimping
Special fluted rollers are available for our Korte and Murska machines (see photo) that will treble your output. (The Korte 700 will crimp maize at 15t an hour with these rollers.)
Preservative
We (and Frans) swear by Kemira Crimpstore 2000S as the proven preservative. Use at 4 litres a tonne for 30% MC. Ensile in the usual way making sure you have good compaction and exclude all air.
Why maize crimp is good for your ration
The starch found in most cereal grains breaks down quite rapidly in the rumen producing acids which can threaten the stability of the rumen pH (causing acidosis). This limits the amount of cereals that can safely be fed to a dairy cow.
As you can see from the chart on the right, the crimping process produces a much more "rumen friendly" cereal feed with a slower rumen breakdown. This results in an increase in "by-pass starch" which can be used directly by the cow in its hind gut. Maize starch has a naturally slower rate of rumen breakdown and delivers a far higher amount of by-pass starch.
Optimising rumen function is the first objective in creating a diet for any dairy cow. With high yielding cows (>7500 litres per year) this is not enough and it is only possible to meet their nutrient requirements by incorporating "by-pass" nutrients.
In a balanced ration, increasing "by-pass starch" has been shown to increase yield, milk protein and fertility. The development of crimped maize provides a cost effective way of incorporating maize starch in the diets of high yielding cows in the UK, and matches the benefits from this enjoyed by dairy farmers in the USA |
