2024 Silage Trends Suggest Consistent Results

BY Dairyland Seed Agronomy Team

In most of our Dairyland Seed footprint, the silage season is wrapping up. Warm and dry weather this fall pushed the corn crop to maturity faster than we expected, especially considering the variability in planting dates we had this spring. There are still a few areas where growers are harvesting the “second crop corn silage.” Although it is preferred to harvest corn silage in one fell swoop, many areas shut down planting due to excessive rain in late May and early June. This forced dairy and livestock producers and those who grow silage for them to plant many acres in June. The gap in planting dates was large enough that switching to earlier hybrids alone could not make up the difference. Thus, it resulted in two different harvest periods.

At Dairyland Seed, we are proud of our robust silage plot program and testing system. Utilizing portable drive over scales, along with sample analyses from a third-party lab, we generate over 500 silage data points each year across the Midwest. This data is on farm in real life situations, where hybrids are exposed to environmental conditions typical to our commercial producers today. For 2024, we have crossed the half-way point in our data processing, so we can begin looking at comparisons between this year and previous years.

Despite highly variable conditions, the 2024 data is very consistent with previous years. Compared to 2023, our data suggests a slight yield reduction. Compared to the average of the past three years, the yield reduction is still there, but less pronounced. Since 2023 was a very high yielding growing season across the broader Midwest, this data suggests that on average our yield performance in 2024 is very good. Looking at quality metrics, again, the data is very consistent with 2024 showing a slight advantage over 2023 in starch and NDFD. To summarize things, the milk equations show a trend in increased silage quality both over 2023 and the 3-year average, while the milk/acre trend is down slightly due to a yield reduction in 2024.

Silage Yield and Quality Comparisons - All Hybrids, All Locations

	MST (%)	Tons/Ac @65%	Dry Tons/Ac	Starch %	NDFD 30hr	Milk/Acre	Milk/Ton
2024 vs 2023	0.3	-1.3	-0.5	0.4	1.2	-1544.5	29.1
2024 vs 3 Yr Avg	0.2	-0.3	-0.2	-0.1	1.4	-339.0	32.7

As we complete the 2024 silage harvest season, we will provide a final silage summary and an analysis of the final data. If you have questions, please reach out to your District Sales Manager or your Regional Agronomist.