all over Iowa | Isn't 10x of corn price for corn in the field value before harvesting and shrink .
No, because the corn price includes harvesting.
We would differ on several assumptions: 180 bu corn should yield 22.5 ton per acre (1 ton/8 bushel, from the University of Illinois extension); to avoid a lot of dirt in the stalks most people are keeping the pick-up a little higher and we're more commonly seeing 4 bales per acre; you can buy stalks here for $25/bale; the average cost to chop/haul/fill corn silage in Iowa is $8-9/ton (our local guy is less than that).
I have a spreadsheet that calculates all of the expenses (either ISU Custom Rate survey or users own costs) and revenues and it's pretty close now. Breakeven is at $3.70 corn, anything above that and revenue per acre is better with corn silage. At $3.50 corn net revenue is about $10/acre lower for corn silage. |
Haylage and corn silage prices
