Corn Silage Production, Living Mulches, and Cover Crops: A Comparison Across Four Forage Rotations.

Corn (Zea mays L.) silage production serves the needs of high producing dairies, yet often comes with great environmental, and agronomic, costs. With little crop rotation, high soil nutrient extraction, and inadequate return of carbon matter, corn silage production can exacerbate soil erosion, contribute to nonpoint source nutrient pollution, and eventually come to yield reduction. Living mulches, cover crops, and crop rotation have been shown to offset many of these detrimental attributes. This study aimed to compare four high quality forage production systems: continuous corn silage; corn silage with winter rye (Secale cereale L.) cover crop; corn silage with kura clover (Trifolium ambiguum M. Bieb.) living mulch rotated with kura clover cover; and corn silage rotated with sorghum sudangrass (Sorghum bicolor L.), both with a kura clover living mulch and winter rye cover crop. The MILK95 equation was used to evaluate forage quality across systems through calculating milk from forage values per ton and per acre. Preliminary data analysis suggests that while the continuous corn rotation performed the best during drought and yielded the most over time, this may be offset through alternative forage production in more diverse systems.