Quote Originally Posted by hemmjo View Post
"Field corn" is different than "Sweet Corn" in the amount of starch and sugar. Field corn kernels are also have much tougher skins than sweet corn.

Sweet corn is harvested by pulling the ears when stalks are green and the silks have just begun to dry out. It is used for human food. It must be processed very quickly to preserve sugar content.

Field corn is harvested after the stalks and ears have dried as much as possible, then often dried more before storage to prevent mold. It is typically ground into meal and used for many products for human consumption. Also used for live stock feed as well and various types of alcohol (corn squeezins or moonshine)as well as ethanol production. Both field and sweet corn the stalks are waste and tilled back into the ground or left as ground cover in no-til planting.

Silage can be made from most any type of green crop. Corn is very common as it grows fast and creates a lot of volume per acre. For silage, both types of corn are harvested early, before the ears mature. The whole plant, stalks and ears are chopped up into small pieces, packed into a air tight enclosure like a silo or BIG plastic bag and allowed to ferment some before being used as feed, typically for cattle as they have a very robust digestive system.
Thanks for the explanation. I remember that is exactly what we did, did both silage made from field cord and we also did just the field corn ears. Had had a a few thousands acer's spread across several fields in different locations. The biggest was to hold the cattle and even that was divided into areas and we would move the herd around from area to area. Also have a few fields of hay. I used to spend all summer with him working all of those duties, even my grandfather helped out driving the tractors and harvesters. A lot of good memories for a place that no longer exist :-(