American Dairy Science Association, 2002. Processing and Chop Length Effects in Brown-Midrib Corn Silage

In this experiment, we evaluated the influence of in-creasing chop length and mechanical processing of whole-plant brown-midrib corn silage on intake, diges-tion, and milk production by dairy cows. Corn silage treatments were harvested at three-quarter milk line stage of maturity at 13- and 19-mm theoretical chop length without processing, or at 19- and 32-mm theoreti-cal chop length with processing at a 2-mm roll clearance. Twenty-four multiparous Holstein cows that averaged 102 ± 17 d in milk at trial initiation were randomly assigned to treatments in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square design with 28-d periods. Preplanned orthogonal con-trasts were used to evaluate effects of processing (19 processed vs. 19 mm unprocessed) and chop length (1