UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 1045 
Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 
WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 
Washington, D. C. 
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 regions 5 
Soil relations and effect on the 
following crop 7 
Varieties 7 
Growing sunflowers for silage 9 
Date of seeding 10 
Method and rate of seeding 10 
Cultivation and irrigation 11 
Harvesting methods 12 
Time to cut sunflowers 13 
Filling 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-4, p. 419) x , 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 
