UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 1045 



Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 

 WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 



^iPiJt. 



J^^^i^t, 



Washington, D. C. 



Y 



March 18, 1922 



THE SUNFLOWER AS A SILAGE CROP. 



By H. N. ViNALL, Agronomist, Office of Forage-Crop Investigations. 



CONTENTS. 



Page, 



Early history of the sunflower 1 



Present distribution 2 



Cultivation in the United States 2 



Areas suited to the production 



of sunflowers 4 



Value of sunflowers in the semi- 

 arid reg-ions 5 



Soil relations and effect on the 



following crop 7 



Varieties 7 



Growing sunflowers for silage 9 



Date of seeding 10 



Metliod and rate of seeding 10 



Cultivation and irrigation 11 



Harvesting methods 12 



Time to cut sunflowers 13 



T'illing the silo 15 



Page. 



Yields of silage 17 



Feeding value of sunflower silage 20 



Composition and digestibility- _ 20 



Palatability 21 



Color, texture, and odor 23 



Acidity of the silage 23 



Results with dairy cattle 23 



Feeding tests with beef cattle 26 



Use of sunflower silage in feed- 

 ing sheep 27 



Feeding sunflower silage to 



hogs 29 



Sunflowers as a soiling crop 29 



Diseases of sunflowers 30 



Insects attacking sunflowers 31 



Literature cited 31 



EARLY HISTORY OF THE SUNFLOWER. 



The common sunflower {Helianthus annuus) is generally recog- 

 nized as native of North America, although its natural range of dis- 

 tribution extends southward to Peru. It was one of the food plants 

 of the American Indians (i^, p. 419)^, the seeds being eaten raw or 

 pounded up with other seeds, then made into flat cakes and dried in 

 the sun. The sunflower was grown as early as 1597 in the gardens 

 at Madrid, Spain. The Spaniards probably obtained the seed from 

 Peru, since it was given the name " Peruvian sunflower " by De Lobel, 

 a Flemish botanist, who published a description of the sunflower in 

 1576. Champlain in 1615 found the Indians in the vicinity of Geor- 

 gian Bay cultivating the sunflower. The oil which they obtained 

 from the seeds was used on their hair. 



1 The serial numbers (italic) in parentheses refer to 

 of this bulletin. 



79165°— 22 1 



' Literature cited " at the end 



