Maize is making its mark

Mr Smith runs beef and sheep on over 300 hectares beside the River Esk at Redhouse Farm, Aisalby, near Whitby, as well as 100 hectares 50 miles south at Easingwold. He pioneered fodder beet in the area eight years ago.

Last year he had 5ha (13 acres) of the RAGT group's Ixxes variety drilled into a medium-loam soil in early June. That was late by most people's standards, but allowance had to be made for the risk posed to tender maize seedlings by late frosts and salt-laden sea winds.

"We could have drilled three weeks earlier – the soil was warm enough," Mr Smith says. "But we've never gone that early with fodder beet and it was right for maize too. The crop jumped out of the ground and never looked back. That's what you want this far north; you can't afford any growth check."

Variety choice proved critical, he says: "We had a cheaper variety in a field beside the Ixxes and it wasn't as good. It was drilled the same day, treated the same way and harvested the same day, but yielded 25 per cent less."

Waiting for the optimal harvest date was also essential, he said. "You could go early, when the leaf is mature, but if you want a quality feed you need to wait until cobs are mature. That's where the starch and the energy is."

The early maturing Ixxes yielded 16t/acre of high dry-matter crop in mid-November, allowing winter wheat to be drilled behind.

Mr Smith says: "Too many crops are harvested too early. We kept checking the cobs until they were ready. It was tight with the weather, but if you're going to grow maize you want to produce the best quality silage you can, and that's what this variety allowed us to do."

The result is around 330t of quality forage clamped and ready for feeding. A fine chop, good clamp consolidation and proper sheeting are the key to preserving quality, says Mr Smith.

"We had a JCB loading shovel compacting the clamp for three hours but it was worth the effort."

The maize would make great finishing feed for his beef, he says, but he plans to auction it. "Grass silage didn't do well here, so I think there will be a good market, worth at least 25/t. And we will definitely plant maize again. It's a better bet than barley."

John Farrow of Malton-based seed supplier Laycocks says Mr Smith is part of a noticeable trend and 2009 saw maize start to take a real foothold in marginal areas. This was partly due to the dreadful 2008 autumn, when winter crops were almost impossible to establish.

Combined with a desire to drive down use of costly concentrates and buffer the inconsistency of grass silage, forage maize filled more spring drills than before in 2009. "We had exceptional growing conditions in 2009," admits Mr Farrow. "But I think variety developments mean forage maize really has moved into the more marginal areas of Yorkshire now."