Abstract:

Silage corn has the reputation of "the king of feed", and generally accounts for about 80% of roughage in the diet formula of dairy cows in developed countries such as the United States. In recent years, the planting area of silage corn has shown a rapid upward trend. In 2016, the planting area of silage corn in China was about 1 million hectares, reaching 1.67 million hectares in 2018, and increasing to more than 2 million hectares in 2020. The number of silage corn approved varieties has also shown explosive growth, with 7 national and provincial silage corn approved varieties in 2016 and a peak of 50 in 2019. From the analysis of planting costs and profits in the national survey, the benefits of planting silage corn are relatively considerable. China has initially formed circular industrial chains such as silage corn seed enterprises, silage production enterprises, and silage consumption enterprises and so on, but there is still a lack of powerful functional departments and industrial organizations to promote the rapid development of the industry. An authoritative evaluation and pricing mechanism for silage corn products beyond the interests of industrial chains has not been established yet. With the continuous improvement of the breeding level of animal husbandry in China, people have gradually enhanced their understanding of the "double-high crops" of the utilization rate and transformation efficiency of whole plant silage corn. On the basis of becoming the main diet of dairy cows, silage corn will further become a high-quality feed for ruminants such as beef cattle and sheep, and the silage corn industry will usher in a new wave of development.

Key words: silage corn, variety approval, planting area, industry status