Freezing Instead of Drying High-Moisture Corn: A system design

摘要

Corn stover can be more effectively utilized as an animal feed if it's collected before in-field dry-down. At corn kernel moisture contents of 35% and above, the stover is not fully lignified, making it easier to digest, both in ruminant animals and in biomass conversion to ethanol. Larry Berger at the University of Nebraska has shown that the digestibility of corn stover collected at physiological maturity had twice the digestibility of stover collected after in-field dry-down. When the stover was mixed with dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) from corn ethanol refineries, the combination was almost as nutritious as whole corn. While it would be beneficial to utilize wet stover as an animal feed, the question of what to do with high-moisture corn remains.