Some farmers have or are considering harvesting drought stessed corn for silage in some parts of NJ. Nitrate toxicity and feeding value are of particular concern. If being sold between farmers, pricing is a question. The following publications give some useful information from other drought stressed states on how to evaluate and deal with these various aspects.Where possible, silage should be considered over haying because of the diffculty in drying the stalks/ears and the fact that nitrates decrease very little in hay in storage as compared to silage in storage. Be aware of poisonous silo gases should high Nitrate corn be ensiled and that nitrate toxicity can also occur in other forages
https://www.msu.edu/~mdr/online/mcfadden1.html
http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/WCM/pdfs/W187_revised.pdf
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/plymouth/cropsci/docs/nitrate_silage.pdf
Zane R. Helsel
