At Maize Forum 2025, which will be held online on January 9th, the audience will get to hear experts’ takes on how growing the maize in the UK can be improved, with tips for what farmers need to look out for when feeding out, planting and managing their maize crop.
2024 was a poor year for maize in the UK, which saw crops test low in starch, dry matter and protein. The impact is expected to be seen in milk yields and cow health because the quality of some maize silage could pose an acidosis threat and is unlikely to enable cows to perform as well as previous years.
In Maize Forum 2025, which will be held on January 9th from 10 am – 11 am, the audience will get to hear from three speakers, each with a unique take on how growing the maize in the UK can be improved, with tips for what farmers need to look out for when feeding out, planting and managing their maize crop.
Bob Fabri, Eurofins International Forage Product Manager, has crunched the numbers on hundreds of maize silage tests and can reveal that starch and dry matter have hit a five-year low. This trend can be seen over the last couple of years, starch levels are declining in maize silages in the UK. He will explain how the figures stack up, what the implications are for farmers and what has led to maize quality dropping so low by covering:
• What does maize need throughout the season? What can explain the disappointing values that have been seen in 2024?
• What is the influence of changed weather on the growth of maize?
• A comparison of UK results to elsewhere in Europe, and what trends can be seen to help UK growers learn from other countries?
Guillaume Franklin, Nutrition Agronomist at Origin Soil Nutrition, will focus on achieving the correct nutrition for young maize crops to improve early development and maintain yield potential. He will highlight:
• Why low levels of plant available phosphate will reduce root development and have a detrimental impact on the uptake of other nutrients. He will talk through trial data showing ways growers can improve phosphate availability.
• How recent trial data shows the importance of sustained sulphur release for 55 days post application to enhance maize establishment.
• Why prescription nutrition is an important tool for growers looking to become more efficient with each application. This will cover how the inclusion of micronutrients, such as zinc, can have far reaching benefits for plant health and performance.
Tom Richmond, Product Manager at Limagrain, suggests a lot of maize in 2024 was late sown due to either weather conditions, including a wet, cold spring which delayed planting, or last-minute decisions to plant due to not getting other crops, mainly cereals, planted. He highlights:
• Pressure to harvest earlier to avoid wet harvest issues, incentives to harvest early to establish cover crops for SFI, and/or water authority payments have all led to a shorter growing season, which has led to the fall in DM%.
• The consequence of early planting, and challenging conditions, is that, as well as DM% dropping, starch levels also fell, with knock-on issues for feed quality both in terms of amount and type of starch, which poses a further risk of acidosis.
• The big increase in NDF and ADF levels are partly due to the season but also partly due to poor variety selection by growers.
The advice from Limagrain will include:
• Choosing modern earlier maturing/short season varieties that can deliver all the yield benefits of later (and cheaper) existing material plus genetic potential to deliver better feed quality.
• Moving to earlier maturing varieties will enable an earlier harvest in good conditions which will allow for the timely establishment of following crop/cover crops/SFI payments.
• Modern earlier varieties can be harvested at more optimal DM% and starch content- improving feed quality.
• Selecting varieties with improved Cell Wall Digestibility (CWD), which has a knock-on benefit to improving fibre digestibility – reducing both NDF and ADF levels to improve overall feed quality.
The 2025 Maize Forum will take place on Microsoft Teams and last approximately one hour. The speaker presentations, images and associated information will be provided to those who attend, in a press pack, along with a recording of the session.
