Maize yield keeps growing
• An aerial view of the maize harvest underway.
By Tony Scott,
MAY 19, 2021
The North-East maize harvest has wound up with the fodder crop taken off about 120 hectares over eight properties.
Winnaleah-based farmer and contractor Jarrod Smith, who plants the crop and co-ordinates its harvest, said the wet weather had broken up the harvest operation but not by as much as last year.
“The yield’s been pretty good, but the cooler summer meant it was a bit slow to mature.”
Maize, is widely grown throughout other cattle farming countries in Europe and the Americas but is a fairly recent addition to agriculture in Tasmania.
It’s finding favour for its high-energy producing starchy compounds and the fact that it can be grown repeatedly in the same ground without decreasing fertility or increasing disease issues, unlike some crops.
“We might have had a bigger crop in one or two some years, but the interest is pretty steadily increasing,” Mr Smith said.
There’s been a fairly dedicated approach to growing Maize with precision planting to promote strong growth and a subcontracted self-propelled forage harvester brought in from the North West.
“Harvesting is fairly critical because the kernel has to be smashed up or it passes through the animal without benefit and the kernel is where most of the starch is concentrated.”
Stored in pits or covered above ground, the fodder is fed out the same as normal silage.
The eight growing maize this year are all dairy farmers bar Bridport beef producer Peter Sattler, who has been a convert for a few years now.
It has been grown from Springfield to Ringarooma and Winnaleah.
While it looks much like sweet corn grown in the home garden and they are in the same family, fodder maize is not very tasty, having been bred for a higher starch content, which makes it floury and dry.