Featuring the same silage specific characteristics as Leafy Corn Silage Hybrids, but with more rumen-available starch for milk production. Starch QUALITY is the key to higher milk yields.
Floury Leafy Corn Silage Video
Floury Leafy Corn Silage Hybrids have a silage specific kernel type that behaves differently in the field, the chopper, the silo and the rumen. They contain a naturally occurring recessive gene called opaque-1. In the farmer’s field, a segregation of kernel type is seen on the ear. Approximately 25% of the kernels on each ear have completely floury interiors. The other 75% of the kernel set is composed of normal Leafy type kernels. All kernels are selected to be large, soft, and slow drying so that they will fracture easily during chopping and cow chewing for maximum starch digestibility.
Floury Leafy ear shaved to reveal kernel composition. Approximately 25% of the kernels on each ear are completely floury.
Floury Leafy Corn Silage Hybrids have been bred to have kernels that contain much more floury starch than a dual purpose (modern grain) hybrid.
When you move your herd to a Floury Leafy ration from a dual purpose, reduce the concentrate corn in the TMR. Expect starch to be 10 to 12% more digestible.
Floury Leafy Kernels are largely pulverized during chopping, making them easy for your herd to digest. Gone are the days when yellow in the pile indicated high quality silage.
Small Particle size
Floury kernels fracture easily into small particles during silage chopping, allowing for a shortened storage period. After chewing, the starch is readily digested and available as energy for milk production.
long rumen retention time
Nutritionists believe that floury starch particles are more buoyant in the rumen and float to stay in the rumen mat for an extended digestion period resulting in increased milk production potential.
HIGH ENERGY STARCH
The small starch particles offer more surface area to rumen bugs for a boost in digestibility. This increase in energy in the corn silage allows for a reduction of concentrate corn in the ration.
ration type adaptabiltiy
Floury Leafy Corn Silage Hybrids are versatile. They can be balanced into various rations types to meet the nutritional needs of your heifers, transition cows, early and late lactation cows and dry cows.
high quality milk
Floury Leafy Corn Silage Hybrids have an increased potential to produce milk with high fat content. They do not require heavy kernel processing during harvest to reduce starch particle size, so fiber particles can remain large enough to act as effective fiber. This promotes normal rumination and saliva production, which plays an important role in protection from acidosis and increases milk fat content.
research: floury leafy vs bmr milk study
“Researchers at the University of Wisconsin conducted a milk study that compared a Floury Leafy (LFY) to a bmr hybrid. They found that “the starch portion of LFY was more digestible than BMR as observed by ruminal in vitro and in situ starch digestibility coefficients.” They found that the Floury Leafy had a “10 percentage unit greater ruminal in situ starch digestibility coefficient (12 h) ... compared with BMR.” They also found that “kernel vitreousness was more than 2-fold greater for BMR than LFY (90.0 vs. 37.5%)” and that “starch digestibility of the BMR was inhibited by vitreousness.” They concluded that their results “imply that [silage] hybrid selection programs, which focus on increasing starch digestibility by dairy cows through selection of softer kernel texture, are feasible.”
While the bmr ration had a higher DMI and produced more milk than the LFY ration, researchers found that the LFY ration had the same feed conversion as the bmr ration and it produced milk with a higher concentration of fat. [M]ilk fat content was greater for cows fed LFY (4.05%) than BMR (3.83%).” They also found that “total-tract starch digestibility was greater for cows fed the LFY corn silage.” Unpublished data showed that the LFY yielded 11% more DM than the bmr.”