High-Moisture vs. Dry Barley on Typical Red River Valley Cash Grain Farms

Abstract

DURING THE LAST DECADE, the practices of harvesting, storing, and feeding high-moisture corn were explored experimentally by research institutions and adopted by many farmers. Advantages often cited, as compared with conventionally harvested corn, include: earlier and faster harvesting, minimum operations and equipment, reduced labor, smaller field and storage losses, and an equal or greater feeding value. But barley, not corn, is the major feed crop in the Red River Valley. Can barley be handled as a high-moisture crop with advantages comparable to those of high-moisture corn? In 1960, personnel of the Northwest School and Experiment Station, Crookston, began an experiment to find out. An 80-acre field of Traill barley was divided into 12 uniform strips. Odd-numbered strips were harvested by direct combine when grain was at approximately 30 percent moisture. The grain was stored in an oxygen-free, steel silo. Barley in even-numbered strips was harvested and stored in the conventional manner. Yields were recorded; combine and shattering losses were determined; the labor, equipment, and machinery used in harvesting, storing, and feeding were listed. Data were collected on combine settings and adjustments, variations in maturity of barley heads at harvest, percent smut, soil tests, and weather conditions at harvest time. Chemical analyses were made on representative barley samples. The stage of wild oat development and the amount of wild oat shattering were determined for each plot. Viability of wild oats after storage under the two systems also was studied.