IN April of this year, I introduced you to Peter and Michele Sharland of Middle Winsham Farm, Braunton, north Devon. All of that month's "Diary" was devoted to explaining their farming enterprise, but, most importantly, how this husband and wife team were planning to improve profitability by what they hoped would be major improvements in the production of their own home grown forage.

Wholecrop spring barley had already been tried and was deemed largely unsuccessful as it had a negative effect on milk yield and a chance conversation with one of their suppliers led them to consider forage maize.

Proposed maize fields were inspected and although the farm is on the marginal side, Peter was given the "green light" and subsequently drilled 25 acres on May 7. Being a first time grower, Peter followed his agronomic advice "to the letter" and he is extremely complimentary over the service he received from Graham Ragg of Mole Valley Farmers. All the maize followed long term grassland, so raising the possibility of attack by both leatherjackets and wireworm, the former being controlled quite cheaply with an appropriate chemical, but unfortunately, the only way wireworm can be controlled is to apply chemically treated seed, so, knowing that he had to grow an early variety because of the marginal conditions, Peter ordered Fabius that had been dressed with Regent.

Weed control is extremely important toward a successful crop of maize and Peter used Stomp as a pre-emergence with Calaris as a post emergence - the latter proving to be a wise move due to a secondary flush of nightshade and fat hen, plus cleavers. Aided and abetted by good seedbed preparation and a rather wonderful June, the crop really romped away and vastly exceeded the old adage of "knee high on the fourth of July" with the crop already being at shoulder height on that date (that's on Peter - not me!).

Harvesting took place on September 19, which, like many maize growers this year, was quite a bit earlier than usual which was due to the quite exceptional growing conditions throughout, with DM yields ranging between 5.75 and 6.25 tonnes per acre - somewhat better than our budgeted 5.50 tonnes per acre. With such good results, Peter will be growing Fabius once again, but next year, he intends to grow 10 acres of Kingdom, as he wants an earlier variety, but of similar yield and quality, to plant on later land.

However, it wasn't all good news! Whilst it is widely acknowledged that it was a superb year for maize, the dry weather in June and July meant that grass production virtually shut down and the cows were fed on last year's third cut silage from the first week of July - finally running out at the time the maize was harvested, which was immediately fed. There was hardly a blade of grass on the farm throughout these summer months and Peter accepts that the cows lost condition during that time, but even though they have only been on maize and first cut silage for less than a month, milk production has already increased by 1.5 litres per cow per day and cow condition has visibly improved.

Weather conditions this year have made grass silaging extremely difficult, with the first cut having to be delayed until May 27 because of rain - the subsequent drought meaning that only 55 acres, as opposed to the normal 75 acres, were used for second cut, with no likelihood at all of a third cut.

Peter said that his third cut in 2005 proved to be a "saviour" this summer and the joint decision to grow maize has "saved their bacon!"

Peter is delighted with the feed value analysis of his first clamp, the results of which are as follows: DM 34%, D Value 72, ME 11.7, Starch 41%.

He immediately noticed that maize stimulated appetites and saw an increase in DM intakes and is now currently feeding a total of 12.5 kgs of forage DM per day - 7 kgs of which are maize and 5.5 kgs of grass. Once the cows are fully conditioned, he anticipates further increases in intakes and milk yields. Since being on maize, milk quality has risen quite significantly with butterfat up from 3.96 to 4.26 and protein up from 3.14 to 3.64.

Late September rain has meant that the farm is now greening up a bit and that there is sufficient grass out there to graze alongside a field of stubble turnips that were planted in mid August. I mention this for two reasons. The first being that a catch crop such as stubble turnips can really get you out of a hole, and the second being that this particular crop of stubble turnips suffered a severe attack by the saw tooth moth, which resulted in huge numbers of black caterpillars munching quite happily on what was supposed to be cattle fodder. A quick dose of Toppel applied at 250 mls/Ha sorted the little blighters out - just in the nick of time it would appear! Apparently, the little "dears" have been quite common in the South West this year and are climate related, so if you do have a brassica crop on the farm at the moment, I would suggest that you check it immediately - before it's too late, especially the off fields - the ones that don't get seen too often.

The decision by Peter and Michelle to grow maize this year has really paid off. They have sufficient fodder in the clamps to feed the cows throughout the winter and might even have a little bit left over to buffer feed in late spring. The quality is superb, cow condition is improving, milk yields are improving, milk quality is improving and they have started to reduce the amount of bought in feeds, but there is still a final piece in this little jig-saw that is proving a mite difficult. You may remember me mentioning last April that, in addition to maize, Peter was also considering growing fodder beet. Circumstances proved that to be difficult this year, but not to be beaten, we decided that it was still more than possible to check out what I really do believe to be a wonderful crop - Peter would buy some from a local farmer who sells off his surplus. Wrong! The very dry year has meant that there was not a surplus this year and we are really struggling to find a source. So, if any of you good people out there have some to spare or, know someone who might, please drop me a line on this e-mail address: frenchcottages@rhayne.freeserve.co.uk As far as amounts are concerned, our current thinking is that we will be needing to feed fodder beet (with maize and silage), for at least a month in order to determine the success or otherwise of the test, so assuming two kgs of DM per day for 100 cows over 30 days, we should need about six tonnes of dry matter and at 17% DM, that roughly means 35 tonnes of beet or about one acre's worth.

If you do have any surplus, do please get in touch as I believe this could give invaluable information to those of you wishing to maximise home grown forage.

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