Majs till mogen skörd
Corn is an important food and feed crop in the world, in Sweden it?s up till now grown
on limited acreages mainly for silage. But I think it can get more important if you can
grow it also for grain, because it?s a good animal feed for example, for life stock-, pigsand
poultry. On of corns advantage is that it can produce the same amount of dry matter
as for example wheat, barley and rise but with 25% less water.
I will examine if it possible to grow corn for grain production in the south of Sweden. I
made also an economic analyse for crop.
The research is placed in the south of Halland, were I?ve grown two different varieties
of corn on a total area of 5,4 hectare. The name of the varieties is Birko and Avenir.
They are both early, one way hybrid with high starch and good stalk strength.
The corn got 129 kg nitrogen, 28 kg phosphorus and 100 kg potassium. The plant
nutrition was given as liquid manure, start nutrition with mineral fertilizers and Nitrogen
27 sulphur. The planting time was the 28 of April, when the soil temperature was 8-
10°C. It was planted 4 cm deep with 75 cm between the rows. Two different plant
protections were done, one for Oscinella frit and weeds and on only for weeds. The
weeds was fight against two more times but then on a mechanical way. The corn was
harvested the 15 of November when the moister was 40%.
Because of the windy May with several nights with frost and the rainy and cold June and
July there was a big variation in yield within the field.
I used a regular combine for harvest and got an acceptable result with not too much
losses, a clean grain and not too many damage kernels. At the hectare where I got the
highest yield the variety Avenir was grown, it gave gross margin on 1843 SEK.
Because of the rainy fall the moister the grain was high and it became infected with
fungus, witch meant that it could not be used as domestic animal feed. Instead it was
sold as wild pigs feed.
My most important conclusion of the research is that it?s possible too grow corn for
grain production in the south of Sweden. But the weather is an important factor if you
are going too succeed or not.