Contact: Greg Blonde, 715-258-6230, greg.blonde@wisc.edu
As Wisconsin corn growers and dairy/livestock farmers deal with immature corn this fall, free Extension pricing apps for standing corn silage and high moisture corn are available to help evaluate the options, according to Greg Blonde, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension Waupaca County agriculture agent.
The Extension corn silage pricing app is available free for both Apple and Android mobile devices. It allows buyers and sellers to enter their own yield estimates and harvest costs with links to current corn and hay markets for reference pricing. The new Apple version also includes links to the latest Wisconsin Custom Rate Guide to help determine silage harvest costs. Difference in soil nutrient removal between silage versus grain harvest is also calculated to help sellers calculate their price. Since 2016 the app has helped determine floor and ceiling prices for hundreds of sellers and buyers. A short YouTube tutorial of the corn silage pricing app is also available on-line at: https://youtu.be/BRLWsL4xM18.
Blonde notes, “This year an additional 10-30 percent price discount or deduction from the final price may be appropriate for corn chopped between early-dent and half-milk due to lack of maturity and lower silage feed quality.”
Blonde says another option for wet corn is high moisture shell corn (HMSC) when kernel moisture is between 24-32 percent. HMSC can be an excellent source of energy for dairy and livestock animals while helping the corn grower reduce lodging and harvest losses, as well as extra drying, handling and storage costs.
“Aa bushel of dry shell corn weighs 56 pounds at 15 percent kernel moisture. That’s over eight pounds of water in each bushel of corn,” Blonde says. “However, corn at 25-35 percent kernel moisture with 17-25 pounds of water per bushel will be much more common this year following delayed planting, excessive rain and saturated fields across much of the region.”
Knowing the value of wet shell corn is important for farmers when making marketing and management decisions like buying, selling, feeding, drying or storing corn. To help with those decisions, Blonde reminds farmers and their advisors to check out the free Extension mobile Android app “Pricing Wet Corn”. The app quickly calculates a value for wet shell corn based on kernel moisture and the price of local dry shell corn (a direct link to local elevator bid prices is built into the app). The equivalent wet corn price is then calculated for both price per ton and price per bushel. Additional costs for drying (gas or electric) can then be entered by the grower to evaluate a breakeven sale price compared to drying and storing the grain. The “Pricing Wet Corn” app is free and available only for Android mobile devices on the Google Play store.
Blonde says buyers and sellers, Extension colleagues and other farm advisors can then use the “share” button in either app to send results, including specific input values, as well as an output summary from their analysis directly from their mobile device.
