harvesting high moisture corn?

What is the advantage of harvesting high moisture corn? Around here you will loose your shirt with the cost of drying and handling, but what caught my attention was a statement on the corn wars program that he had lost 30 bph due to the corn being harvested was around 18% instead of the 27% and better that they normally harvested at?????? I know that program is full of drama and what ever else but I can't see where he was getting his figures from unless they don't deduct the weight of the moisture that will be lost after drying, not deducting the moisture may be how they are producing 500 bph corn.

Yea that was pretty extreme comment I thought.

I?d say 18-20% corn doesn?t shell as bad and the corn is less likely to be breaking down in the field so you can get more bushels than waiting until it?s 14% (as if you could in my back yard it has happened but rare).

But 27% wow that is starting real wet, would think you would run into drying losses and the corn might not be totally filled even when you get up near 30%.

Paul

I think those are all made up numbers, first off never heard of 500 BPA. You can dry down a couple of points with air if the corn is hot and the air is cold and dry. Bushels are sold by weight with the moisture compensated and deducted.

I think 14% @ 55 pounds per bushel is the standard for corn.

I ask this same question a few weeks ago after reading about it.
Seems all the state ag extensions agree with this point of view.
Harvest Considerations for High Moisture Corn

Not uncommon to harvest corn at 30 percent here in Ontario. However, newer varieties do dry down quicker after black layering, plus standability is better. We are up against the weather here, so it becomes a trade off. Once corn is black layered....mature....the kernels will dry down a couple points a week depending on the weather. Full test weight is also pretty well achieved after maturity although some varieties will show a bit lighter test if harvested at 30 percent. At moisture less than 25 percent, field losses begin to climb due to ear drop and stalk breakage, so it becomes a trade off between lower drying costs by leaving it longer in the field and a possible yield loss vs. higher drying costs with a bit more yield. Every variety and every fall is different as well as drying costs and the price of corn so it becomes a calculated guess. This year we were extremely lucky with most corn harvested at 20 percent or less with a great yields and low field loss.....but DOM losses were very high in places some to the extent the corn was simply left in the field.
Ben

I would think bph stands for bushels per hectare, there are about 2 1/2 acres in a hectare.

Oh, now that makes more sense.

Thanks

For feed that is not an unusual moisture in bags sil's or other means of storage for high moisture corn. If he is drying it and storing in bin then yes it is a bit high. The last few years I have started at about 22 and finished about 18-19. This year was a strange year for corn. We had a few guys claiming corn was starting to sprout and mold on the stalk in the ear. I had some do that and this and was in mid Oct.

Sorry about the bph mistake it should have been bpa, in areas where a short season is a factor I can see the possible benefit but around here the dockage is around 7 cents and up per point of moisture, so on 30% corn that is 1.05 per bushel x 150 bushels = $157.50 , even with the ag specialist claiming as much 10% loss at 15% moisture that is 15 bushels x $4.00 = $60.00, as for there calculations if 15 bushels were lost here the ground would heave up with all that volunteer corn coming up, and the claims that wet corn is easier to harvest, they have never ran a combine in wet corn then dry, dry is probably 30% less load on the combine not to mention the hauling and handling equipment, I know of two brothers that spray theirs as soon so they can to get a jump on starting to harvest, we sell to the same market and the operator told my son that the first corn they brought in was docked $1.50 per bushel for moisture. May be that I don't understand all the positive reasons for harvesting high moisture corn for grain but my figures won't match theirs.

I forget where you are located.

Here in MN dryingcorn is just a given. The coop deducts the weight of the excess moisture. It?s called shrink actually, and they deduct a tiny bit more than they should.

Then they add a drying fee per point of moisture removed.

I guess it?s figured different here than there.

Beans they treat like you get it with corn - big deductions if it?s too wet, and might not take them if they are real wet.

If they didn?t take wet corn, they wouldn?t get much corn here.....

Paul

GBS the show your watching is dramatizing things for TV. There is a thing called "Phantom Yield Loss". I posted about it a few weeks ago.

A short explanation is the earlier the corn can be harvested while still being mature enough and dry enough to handle ( the numbers I have seen and know put that at anytime under 22-23%)You can cover the drying cost with the yield savings. This phantom Yield loss is where the plant actually will steal starch from the ear to keep the plant alive even though the plant has completed it's job of producing a mature ear/ears. Then you add in other yield losing factors: ear drop in the field, shelling at the stripper plates with dry corn, stalk lodging and etc. So anytime after the ear matures in the early fall and the moisture content is under 23% or so we harvest full bore when weather permits.

This is worse in years when the moisture level of the ear/kernels goes up and down before a killing freeze.

This year we harvested half a field for high moisture feed. The corn was around 28-30% moisture. We where running it through a roller mill anyway so kernel damage was not a concern. Then the rains of Oct. keep us from finishing the field before the balance was under 17-18%. There was no ear drop we could see. Next to zero lodging either. There was about an 4-5% drop in yield. This was weighed bushels, all adjusted back to 15%. Not just yield monitor numbers. It does vary widely with varieties of corn. Some are worse than others.

I will also say this you can not harvest corn at 25- 30% an not have a lot of kernel damage from the combine and heat stress cracks caused by drying super wet corn.

So take just about anything you see on a TV Reality show with a HUGE pinch of salt. LOL