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SEVERAL ENQUIRIES




I work in forage crop extension in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, 
immediately north of Whatcom County in Washington State. Both areas are 
major dairy producing regions. Forages grown include silage corn, 
orchardgrass, tall fescue and perennial ryegrass plus a small amount of 
white clover with the grasses. My enquiries are:

  1) in our intensive dairy production (large herds on small land bases, 
therefore lots of manure), forage K levels are quite high (average 3.15% 
for grass silages and 3.64% for hays in a recent competition); this is 
causing problems with Ca and Mg utilization by cows and dairymen are 
finding it hard to balance rations with such forages; one has asked me 
whether tall fescue accumulates as much K as orchardgrass or ryegrass; his 
grass silage sample (50:50 orchardgrass/ryegrass) in the competition 
contained 3.65% K; can anyone help me with this please?

  2) a local dairyman has just bought a Kemper corn head for his forage 
harvester; it is not the traditional type that requires corn to be planted 
at a 30-inch row spacing (most common spacing in this area); he wants to 
seed some of his corn this year in 15-inch rows (basically planting the 
field twice); normal seeding rate used here is 30,000 seeds per acre, so 
he would plant twice with 15,000 seeds per acre each time; therefore, 
rather than have plants 7 inches apart in 30-inch rows, he will have 
plants 14 inches apart in 15-inch rows; he wants to know what this will 
mean for his crop of silage corn in terms of yield, feed quality and 
anything else; I would appreciate any advice on this.

Thank you very much.

Don Bates