By Greg Morris and Leighton Hart
Early planted maize can support silage quality and help return paddocks to grazing sooner.
Planting maize earlier is usually less about increasing total dry matter yield and more about improving grain fill and getting paddocks back into pasture or a winter crop on time.
Delayed planting can push flowering and early grain fill into the hottest, driest months.
In cooler regions, where there are fewer heat units, it is also possible for later-planted crops to run out of heat, which can compromise grain fill and maize silage starch percentage.
Earlier sowing can bring maize silage harvest forward from late April to late March.
This means maize silage is available earlier for autumn feeding. It also reduces exposure to weather damage, wet harvest conditions, and frost during grain fill.
Early harvest can also improve the window for establishing pasture or a winter crop, returning the paddock to grazing sooner and increasing subsequent feed production.
Earlier sowing effectively buys extra heat units.
Planting four weeks earlier can allow the use of a slightly longer comparative relative maturity (CRM) maize hybrid without delaying harvest, or growers can plant the same CRM hybrid and harvest it earlier.
Where the hybrid suits local conditions, a longer CRM hybrid can increase dry matter yield potential, but care should be taken not to plant an excessively long maturity hybrid that cannot reliably reach optimum harvest maturity, as this may reduce both yield and silage quality.
If moisture is limiting, early maize silage planting can improve drought resilience, because flowering and early grain fill are more likely to be completed prior to soil moisture reserves being depleted.
Before planting maize, ensure soil temperature at 10cm depth is consistently 12°C or higher for several consecutive days.
Avoid planting ahead of significant rain, prepare the ground for good seed-to-soil contact, and protect seed with a quality treatment such as Pioneer Seeds Betta Strike.