Tuesday, November 6, 2007
142-4
Alternative Methods of Assessing Corn Silage Value Based on Yield and Quality.
In corn (Zea mays L.) silage hybrid or management trials it is often difficult to accurately assess the economic value of treatments accurately. The economic value of treatments is a function of the yield, forage quality and the cost of dairy ration adjustment to maximize milk yield. A method is needed that is flexible to adjust for the value of nutrients in the silage on individual farms. A spreadsheet based program was developed to facilitate the evaluation and ranking of treatments based on the nutrient value, potential milk response, yield and cost of production of various treatments. The need to adjust for nutrient values is especially critical now since nutrients values have changed from historic levels. The spreadsheet is called REVA (Relative Economic Value Approach) and will be available on the Penn State Corn and Soybean Management website (http:/cornandsoybeans.psu.edu). The economic value of each treatment or hybrid is estimated as the sum of the value of NDF, crude protein and NEL, plus the potential value of added milk production due to higher fiber digestibility minus the cost of production for each treatment. The treatments are then ranked by the spreadsheet from highest to lowest, using the lowest ranking treatment as a base. The relative economic returns compared to that treatment are estimated in the spreadsheet. These economic differences and the rankings were compared to those determined with Milk 2006 and the analysis showed that the rankings were often similar but the range among treatments in economic value was greatly reduced with the REVA approach.
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