Grain Maize Area Set for Growth

While production remains concentrated in the south east of England with growers either crimping or drying down the grain direct for local markets, those as far north as Yorkshire are also benefitting from the crop.

Here they are utilising dual-purpose types as a source of high energy feed to replace bought in concentrates, if need be cutting and ensiling the whole crop rather than combining and crimping the grain.

And with well over a million tonnes of grain maize imported every year, and UK farmers unlikely to produce more than a tenth of this amount, there’s plenty of room for expansion if we can meet the quality standards the feed compounder needs.

According to KWS UK maize specialist, John Burgess, currently around 60% of the crop is crimped and fed to stock, but with grain maize currently worth around £170t more growers are selling grain maize as a high energy value feed to specialist compounders.

 “Crimped grain helps you get more energy into the cow,” he explains.  “Because some of the starch by-passes the rumen and ends up the hind gut, there’s a second stage of absorption of high energy feeds.  As a result, cow productivity increases with more of the maize being utilised.”

Grain maize is also increasingly used by compounders for specialist feeds – most notably for poultry - and while this crop is normally harvested slightly after that for crimping and usually requires drying down, it can produce very high returns

According to John Nix’s 2011 Farm Management Pocket Book, given average yields of 7.5t/ha and prices at £145/t ex farm, gross margins are around £740/ha.  However, according to John Burgess new higher yielding types such as Coryphee are very fast out of the blocks and quite capable of doing 10t/ha taking gross margins to over £1300/ha at today’s prices.

“Even with drying costs of £90-188/ha to get the crop down to 15% moisture content, this still provides a very competitive gross margin for those who can secure a local market from what is an excellent spring break crop in a wheat rotation,” he says. 

Mr Burgess suggests that this year, the crop could be ready in mid-October, a little later than originally expected following the cooler end to the summer, but ahead of the typical Nov/Dec harvest period some 5 years or so ago.

He points out that in trials by David Bright last season, Coryphee produced yields of 12.5t/ha, with the lowest moisture content of all varieties - 27.5% - at harvest on October 5th.  Coryphee also provides the brighter yellow sample favoured for dried grain maize production.

 “Plant them from early April and they can come to harvest and provide an ideal late October entry for a following winter wheat,” he says. “In contrast to tall, late varieties that take an age to mature, these compact hybrids are also quick to dry down.”

Further north, Lapriora is effectively being used as a dual-purpose variety and last year produced impressive results for grain in Yorkshire without the need for plastic. 

Here, another option is to harvest the cob with a traditional forage harvester using a picker header as ‘corn cob mix’ CCM to typically provide a 45% Starch and 13ME high energy feed.

“By selecting very early grain type varieties growers can take the bulk of their silage at normal timings, ‘reserving’ a proportion of their crop for CCM,” he says.

Frans De Boer runs a grain maize crimping service at Horsham, W Sussex.  He says that while the dry cold start to the year and lack of summer moisture didn’t help, he expects to be cutting crops in mid-October at 30-40% moisture. 

“You need the right land, be below 400m altitude and have enough heat units to succeed. Unless you are crimping, prompt, thorough drying is critical as the crop will only last as long as wheat does,” he says.

His business now purchases grain maize from the arable sector processing it on farm and then delivering it direct to the end user.  Dairy farmers in the far West, Wales, the North of England and Scotland purchase crimped maize and arable farmers from the South and South East supply a range of grain maize markets.   “New earlier varieties are helping,” he says.

Weald Granary dried and stored around 2000t of grain maize last year for members supplying animal feed outlets.  According to store manager, John Smith it costs members around £30/t for a package that hauls, cleans and dries the crop down to 15% moisture.

“Grain maize fits in well with us, coming after cereals.  We put it through the driers twice, the first to knock out 15% and then the rest as a second pass to provide a stable crop for storage,” says Mr Smith. 

“Most of it goes to feed compounders – some of them a good way north and we could probably handle up to 5000t of grain maize through the store.