Corn stover consists of the leaf, plant stem, and Corncob of corn (maize) ( Zea mays ssp. mays Carl Linnaeus.) plants left in a field after harvest. Such stover makes up about half of the crop yield of a corn crop
Uses
Fodder (ensilaged or nonensilaged)
Corn stover (like various other kinds of stover) can be used as
animal feed, whether
grazing as
forage,
forage harvester as
silage to be used later for
fodder, or collected for direct (nonensilaged) fodder use.
Last updated on June 22, 2017, 14:24 In
dairy farming, corn silage is primarily used as fodder for
dairy cattle during the winter season. Corn stover can be beneficial to
beef cattle producers because the "corn stover can provide a low cost feed source for mid-gestation beef cows".
In addition to the stalks, leaves, husks, and
Corncob remaining in the field, kernels of grain may also be left over from harvest. These left over kernels, along with the corn stover, serve as an additional feed source for grazing cattle. Over time, the stalks will decrease in value as feed, so farmers aim to graze the corn stover as soon as possible after harvest. The amount of grazing possible on a field of corn stover is "between one and two months of grazing per cow per acre (50 cows on for one to two months)."
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When corn stover is harvested intact (as opposed to the whole plant being chopped for silage, or the stover being left in the field by a combine), it can be cut and gathered by corn binders, which are designed specifically for maize.[For example, ] It can also be baler into large round bales.
Bedding (litter) followed by soil amendment
Instead of feed uses, corn stover can also be collected for use as bedding or litter for the livestock (that is, cellulosic bulk to catch and contain the animal manure), or it can be a vegetable manure that stays in the field as plant litter (serving as green manure, although less green wood than some others, with a higher C/N ratio). When used as bedding (barn litter), it is then removed and directly manure spreader on the fields or (in long piles handled by loaders) for later field spreading. In either of the latter two use cases, it ends up as organic matter for soil conditioner.
Direct soil amendment
The feed and bedding uses of corn stover are common, but the plant litter/vegetable manure use is also common. The latter is true for any combination of two reasons: (1) it helps to maintain soil health, and (2) when the corn crop is used as a grain crop (as opposed to a silage crop), harvesting the (grainless) stover simply does not pay; there is often no market demand for it that outweighs its value on the farm as soil maintenance, which represents an economic factor of its own. Regular annual harvesting of the whole corn plant (chopping for silage) is more challenging to soil management than is using the corn as a grain crop and mulching the field with the stover.
Bioenergy
Another use for corn stover is as fuel for bioenergy or as raw material for agriculture. It can be burned in furnaces to yield energy that convert to electricity. It also has potential for cellulosic ethanol (biomass ethanol), which is "ethanol made from non-grain plant materials known as biomass."[ The free accessibility to corn stover makes it a prime candidate for biomass ethanol production. DuPont opened a facility in Nevada, Iowa, that was expected to generate 30 million gallons annually of cellulosic biofuel produced from corn stover residues.][ DuPont Nevada Site Cellulosic Ethanol Facility – DuPont Biofuel Solutions]
Composition and properties
HHV: 19 MJ/kg DAF
