This podcast, presented by Richardt Venter, an international silage consultant, serves as Part 1 of a series on silage crops, focusing specifically on maize silage. It explains why maize silage is not only the most commonly produced silage in South Africa but also globally, highlighting its ability to produce more digestible nutrients per hectare than few other crops.

The episode delves into the economic advantages, emphasizing how self-production of maize silage avoids the "double logistics" and administrative costs associated with purchasing grain concentrates, making it a lucrative summer crop for meeting fodder flow requirements.

Listeners will gain a comprehensive understanding of maize silage's key characteristics and benefits, including:

• Its average starch content of around 30% (percentage dry matter), with insights into how factors like cultivar selection, plant population, fertilisation, and cutting stage can unlock potential starch values above 40% to improve profitability.
• Its high Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) values attributed to low fibre levels and excellent digestibility. The unique "dilution property" is discussed, where starch increases with plant maturity, boosting TDN as dry matter increases within practical limits.
• An overview of its protein content, noting that while other crops might be chosen for primary protein supplementation, maize silage provides a significant contribution when fed in large quantities.
• Details on why maize silage is one of the easiest types of silage to preserve, due to its abundance of water-soluble carbohydrates that drive effective fermentation, ensuring low pH and appropriate lactic and acetic acid levels. The importance of efficient fermentation to prevent losses is also stressed.

The podcast also references a real-world example from Altenburg farming entity in Dendron, Limpopo, featuring farmer Willie du Preez and Pannar Agronomist Gerhard Engelbrecht, who utilize the PANNAR hybrid PAN 5P-955PW for silage maize. Data from 2023 is presented to illustrate typical nutritional parameters, including dry matter, starch, fibre, TDN, crude protein, and fermentation acids.

Ultimately, this episode underscores that maize silage remains one of the best options for achieving high-quantity and high-quality roughage production and storage across all livestock systems.

Think of maize silage as a farmer's strategically banked energy reserve. Just as a squirrel meticulously gathers and stores nuts for the winter, producing and ensiling maize allows livestock producers to capture and preserve peak nutritional value from their crops, providing a stable and readily available high-energy feed source that sustains their animals and operations through varying seasons and market conditions.