Harvesting and Storage of Agronomic Crops¹

E. B. Whitty and C. G. Chambliss²

Field crops may be harvested by livestock or by man, by hand or with machinery for use on the farm or for sale. The harvested product may consist of the entire plant or only a part of it. In any case, there is an optimum stage of growth at which any given crop should be harvested for securing the proper balance between yield and quality.

Information on the stages of growth at which various crops should be harvested for different uses is presented in Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Moisture contents, at which harvested products should be stored, are listed in Table 6.

Harvesting of the fruit of some crops, such as cotton, and the seed of certain others, such as clovers and soybeans, is made easier if part or all of the leaves are removed or desiccated prior to the operation of the mechanical harvesters.

The following tables may contain unique terminology relative to plant growth stages or harvest methods. For example, the "milk" stage of grains indicates an early stage of growth when the contents have the consistency of milk. As they mature, the contents then pass through a "soft dough" to "hard dough" stage. The "dent" stage of corn growth follows the "dough" stage and refers to when the kernels begins to show indentations, with "early" or "late" further describing this stage of growth. The "boot" stage of growth refers to the early reproductive stage of small grains and other grass crops when the inflorescence expands the upper leaf sheath, which may also be called the "boot". The term "hogging-off" refers to a method of harvest, usually of corn or peanuts, when hogs are put in a field to eat the crop.

Tables

Table 1.

Stage of growth to graze field and forage crops.

Grazing Crops	When to Graze (Plant Ht In.)	Grazing Crops	When to Graze (Plant Ht In.)
Aeschynomene	12 - 24	Alyceclover	6 - 12
Bahiagrass, Pensacola	2 - 6	Bermudagrass, common	2 - 6
Bahiagrass, Argentine	3 - 9	Bahiagrass, common	2 - 6
Bermudagrass hybrids	3 - 9	Bermudagrass, stargrasses	8 - 16
Buffelgrass	4 - 12	Burclovers	3 - 9
Caribgrass	10 - 30	Carpetgrass	2 - 6
Clover, arrowleaf	3 - 9	Clover, berseem	8 - 12
Clover, crimson	2 - 6	Clovers, hop	2 - 6
Clover, Persian	3 - 9	Clover, red	3 - 9
Clover, subterranean	2 - 6	Clover, rose	3 - 9
Clover, white	3 - 9	Corn	---¹
Cogongrass	4 - 12	Cowpea	12 - 24
Dallisgrass	3 - 9	Desmodium, carpon	3 - 9
Fescue, tall	2 - 6	Guineagrass	8 - 24
Indigo, hairy	15 - 30	Kudzu	12 - 24
Lespedeza, common	2 - 6	Lespedeza, Kobe	4 - 12
Lovegrass, weeping	4 - 8	Lupine, sweet blue	12 - 18
Lupine, sweet yellow	8 - 12	Medic, black	2 - 8
Molassesgrass	4 - 16	Napiergrass	36 - 60
Oats	3 - 10	Pangolagrass	4 - 16
Paragrass	10 - 30	Pearlmillet	15 - 30
Peanuts, perennial	6 - 8	Rescuegrass	4 - 8
Rhodesgrass	6 - 12	Rye	4 - 10
Ryegrass	3 - 6	St. Augustinegrass	3 - 9
Sericea	6 - 12	Sourclover	8 - 16
Soybean	12 - 24	Sorghum-Sudangrass	24 - 36
Stargrass	8 - 16	Sweetclover	10 - 20
Stylosanthes (stylo)	12 - 24	Torpedograss	2 - 8
Trefoil, big	2 - 6	Triticale	4 - 10
Vaseygrass	6 - 15	Velvetbean	---
Wheat	5 - 10
¹ Corn may be hogged-off any time after the grain has reached the hard dough stage.

Table 2.

Stage of growth or time to harvest hay crops.

Hay Crops	When to Mow
Alfalfa	Early to full bloom stage
Alyceclover	Early to full bloom stage
Clovers	Early to full bloom stage
Cowpea	When first seedpods are mature
Grasses, perennial	After 16" of spring growth or 4 - 5 weeks of regrowth
Indigo, hairy	Very early bloom stage
Kudzu	May and October
Lespedeza	Early bloom stage
Oats ¹	Milk to soft dough stage
Peanuts	Bale hay after harvest of nuts
Peanuts, perennial	Mid-June, mid-August, and fall
Rye ¹	Boot to early head
Sericea	When plants are 12" high
Soybeans	When seedpods are about half filled
Wheat ¹	Milk to soft dough stage
¹ With or without legumes.

Table 3.

Stage of growth to harvest silage crops.

Silage Crops	When to Cut
Alfalfa	Early bloom stage
Clovers	Early bloom stage
Corn	Hard dough to early dent stage
Grasses, perennial	Boot to early head stage
Indigo, hairy	Very early bloom stage
Oats ¹	Milk to soft dough stage
Pearlmillet	When seedheads first appear
Rye ¹	Boot to early head stage
Sorghum	Soft to medium dough stage
Sudangrass-sorghum hybrids	When seedheads first appear
Soybeans	When seedpods are about half filled or bottom leaves turn yellow
Wheat	Milk to soft dough stage
¹ With or without legumes

Table 4.

Stage of growth to harvest grain and oilseed crops.

Grain and Oilseed Crops	When to Harvest
Corn	Three to four weeks after leaves turn brown
Peanuts	Use hull-scrape method or after most of pods are filled and when inside of hulls turn dark and show dark veins.
Rice	When the kernels in the lower part of the heads are in the hard dough stage
Oats, rye, wheat	After the grain is ripe and quite dry and the straw has become brittle
Sorghum	After seedheads are mature and the grain is quite dry
Soybeans	When pods are dry and beans are hard, but before excessive shattering occurs

Table 5.

Stage of growth to harvest silage crops.

Seed Crops	When to Combine
Aeschynomene	After most of the seed pods are dry
Alyceclover	When half the pods are brown
Bahiagrass	When most of spikes are turning brown and seed can be stripped from the spikes with tightly closed finger and thumb
Clovers	When 60 to 75% of seedheads are dry
Cowpeas	After most of the seedpods are dry
Hairy Indigo	After most of the seedpods are dry
Lupines	After seed are fully mature, but before excessive shattering occurs

Table 6.

Optimum moisture contents for safe storage of harvested field crop products.

Product	Moisture Content (%)
Hay, baled	18 or below
Silage, chopped	65 to 75
Grain and oilseed:
Corn (shelled, in bins)	12 or below
Corn (in shuck, open bins)	25 or below
Grain sorghum	12 or below
Oats, rye, wheat	12 or below
Peanuts	7 to 9
Rice	13 to 14
Soybeans	10 or below
Seeds (most grasses and legumes)	12 or below
Tobacco	18 or below

Footnotes

This document is SS-AGR-151, one of a series of the Agronomy Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. First printed December 1992. Revised March 2005. Please visit the EDIS Web site at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.

E. B. Whitty, professor and C. G. Chambliss, associate professor, Agronomy Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.

The use of trade names in this publication is solely for the purpose of providing specific information. UF/IFAS does not guarantee or warranty the products named, and references to them in this publication does not signify our approval to the exclusion of other products of suitable composition.

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Millie Ferrer-Chancy, Interim Dean.

Harvesting and Storage of Agronomic Crops1

Tables

Footnotes

Harvesting and Storage of Agronomic Crops¹