LOADING GREEN FEED INTO SILOS 



Sunflowers make an equally satisfactory forage for cattle whether fed as a soilage crop or 

 as ensilage. It has the drawback of having to be run through an ensilage cutter before it 

 can be used to advantage, but makes a very good winter feed when cut. (Fig. 15). 



not irrigated, though some sub-irriga- 

 tion water was available from seepage. 

 The crop grew well, stood 9 to 10 feet 

 tall and yielded about 22 tons of green 

 feed per acre. We started to feed the 

 sunflowers to the cows the latter part of 

 August. They were run through an 

 ensilage cutter and fed green from the 

 field. The cows ate the forage readil5^ 

 For comparison we divided the cows 

 into two lots and fed green corn to one 

 of the lots. The cows on the sunflowers 

 ate this forage just as readily as those 

 getting corn and maintained their 

 milk flow just as well. This test was 

 continued for some three weeks. The 

 sunflowers remaining were put into the 

 silo and fed during the winter to both 

 cows and fattening steers. Samples 

 were taken of the green forage for chem- 

 ical analysis but the destruction of our 

 chemical laboratory last fall destroyed 

 these and prevented the chemical studies 

 contemplated. The results of the feed- 

 ing test were very satisfactory, however. 

 Some fear was expressed that the sun- 



flowers would taint the milk, so the milk 

 from the cows getting the sunflowers 

 was kept separate from that produced by 

 the cows getting the regular feeds. One 

 could not find any difference in flavor 

 as a result of the feeding of the sun- 

 flowers. In other words, one guessed 

 wrong as often as he guessed right in 

 picking out the milk of the cows fed the 

 sunflowers. 



The past season we planted 7 acres to 

 the sunflowers. Again the crop did 

 well, growing 11 or 12 feet high and 

 yielding close to 25 tons of green forage 

 per acre. We repeated the feeding 

 comparison with the green corn as a 

 food and with equally as good results as 

 the year before. We have this year 

 filled a 125-ton silo nearly full of sun- 

 flowers and have planned this winter to 

 repeat the test of last year. We have 

 also taken samples for chemical analysis. 



Two facts, I believe, we have demon- 

 strated: first, that the Russian sun- 

 flowers make a satisfactory forage for 

 cattle, whether fed as a soiling crop or as 



137 



