There is no harvest leftover that you cannot use when it comes to animal feed or bedding. Corn stalks are part of the leftover harvest that you can clench and wrap after you have removed the kernels. Even though the nutritional value of corn stalks bales is lower than alfalfa and other types of animal feed, you can still take advantage of potassium, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and other organic materials.
You can also use bales of corn stalks that you arrange in such a way helps resist erosion. The density of the bales makes it possible to do that. However, you must be able to utilize post-harvest residues in corn fields down to the smallest inch of corn stalks and corn husks so that you can continue to increase business profits. The corn you plant also contributes to the soil because of its organic ingredients.
Apart from that many people like corn plants and can generate sustainable profits. You can also use corn plant residue to make bedding for livestock. For this reason, you need to arrange the corn stalks in several areas on your farm in such a way.
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Is It Good to Leave Dead Corn Stalks in the Field?
Maybe many people have different opinions about the use of corn stalks where they don’t need to do things like rolling and wrapping them. They just leave the it as harvest residue scattered on the corn field. They thought it could provide additional nutrition to living plants. However, this is quite risky considering that there will be an outbreak of sap beetles that will come because of the corn stalk waste.
Then there is another risk if some corn stalks reach the area where bicycles, motorbikes, and cars are due to kids playing or animals such as cats or rats carrying them there. The strong and fibrous stalks can puncture and deflate your tires.
Corn Stalks as an Economical Option for Winter
Grazing of beef cattle sometimes become a problem for a farm. The need for animal feed can be quite a drain on money and energy if you don’t plan it well before winter comes.
However, you can continue to extend grazing by using corn crop residues for beef cattle. You can graze beef cattle when the snow depth ranges from 2 to 8 inches. If it is thicker than that then you have to return the cow to the farm and start giving it feed in the form of bales or rations.
Meanwhile, you can make your own corn stalks bales. It seems that the straw baler that we are familiar with can properly wrap corn stalks that have become waste. But it would be better if you use a special baler for corn made from a selected premium quality resin. Why is that?
You have probably never handled corn stalks directly in the field and you have only heard from most people who manage big farms. They may have expressed that the environment is dirty enough and you need to carry out work to dispose of some of the components in the baler. But you can do the job easily if you have a special machine stalk chopper.
How it works is hitting while kneeling to cut the stalks and possibly other corn debris such as leaves. There is a conditioner that will help dry the corn stalks properly before the rolling process. And you can use nets from selected premium quality resin material from Silopak, a company that produces silage film to maintain the nutritional value of silage, corn, straw, and mixed feed.
Starting a Corn Stalks Business
When you are able to process corn stalks or forage bales yourself, then it will automatically make you a professional seller. You will know how many bales of feed you need for all the livestock on your farm. You also know much about how much you will market out. In 2018, the price of a corn stalks bale reached 30 to 50 dollars. The price increases according to the value of bale maintenance, raw materials, and operational costs.
However, now you have your own idea about your bale business startup plans in the future, right? Then, you also know that feed from corn stalks bales should require the addition of other rations according to the nutritional feed that the livestock on your farm require. Apart from that, corn stalks’ other business also includes providing corn stalks bedding.
You can make a starter kit bedding that is easy to implement so that potential buyers will have an interest in your product. We know that wheat straw and sawdust are increasingly rare as bedding for livestock. Using it as bedding is currently an economical step considering its abundance in the fields.
Farmers are starting to switch to corn residue where an average ton of residue comes from 40 bushels of corn. So, you can produce as much as 4 to 5 tons per hectare of corn stalks.
However, to make bedding, you can use a lawn mower to cut the whole stalk, then you can dry it. The next step is that you can rake and clench it so that the shape matches the order. Well, Silopak will help you too in providing good silage film to wrap all the corn stalks you want to process.
Silage Film Supplier
We have been exporting our products since 2011 to many countries. Our products are under the brands Silopak and many OEMs. All the bad weather conditions have given us inspiration to continue to innovate so that our silage film or net bale wrapping products become increasingly high quality. All of our customers spread across several countries have proven for themselves how strong the Silopak production wrappers are.
Whatever type of animal feed or forage you want to produce in the form of bales, we can definitely help you wrap it in our best silage film or net. No need to hesitate and now is the time for you to prove for yourself how strong and long lasting our products are.