Maize harvesting for silage promotes intense use of soil nutrients. The increase in forage harvesting time can ease nutrient use and benefit the nutritional quality of the silage. However, this practice may be economically unviable due to the reduction in the volume of harvested forage. The objective of our experiment was to evaluate several agronomic parameters, such as production, plant composition, nutritional value of silage and nutrient balance in the soil by harvesting the maize plant at different silage heights: 0.20; 0.40; 0.60; 0.80 and 1.00 m above the ground. The experimental design was completely randomized, with five treatments with five repetitions. Representative plants in each plot were cut and fragmented in a forage machine. This material was homogenized and ensiled in experimental polyvinyl chloride (PVC) silos. Each 0.10 m increase at harvest provided an increase of 0.65% in the dry matter content of the forage and reduced harvest to 339 kg ha -1 of dry matter. The presence of grains in the forage increased linearly 1.24% for every 0.10 m at the time of harvest. The levels of neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber and silage lignin had a linear decrease of 4.5, 2.8 and 9.6%, respectively, per each 0.10 m lift crop height. Regarding the total digestible nutrients, dry matter intake and the relative forage, these values had a linear increase of 0.5, 7.2 and 8.2%, respectively. For each 0.10 m increase in cutting height, there was a decrease in soil nutrients, namely 3.6 kg ha -1 N, 1.3 kg ha -1 P 2 O 5 , 9.5 kg ha -1 K 2 O, 0.9 kg ha -1 CaO and 1.2 kg ha -1 MgO. Even with the harvest at 1.00 m above the ground, nutrient recycling nutrients by necromass is not sufficient to balance the potassium balance in the soil, causing a decline of 37.69 kg ha -1 K 2 O. The maize harvest to 0.47 m height represented the best relationship between silage quantity and quality, being the height that presents the greatest potential for economic return, and can fund management practices and soil fertilization to prevent degradation in foraging systems, mainly to overcome the negative balance of potassium in the system. ResumoA colheita de milho para ensilagem promove intensa exportação de nutrientes do solo. A elevação da altura de colheita da forragem pode amenizar a exportação de nutrientes e beneficiar a qualidade nutricional da silagem. No entanto, essa prática pode ser inviável economicamente devido à redução no volume de forragem colhida. Objetivou-se com este experimento avaliar os parâmetros agronômicos de produção, composição vegetal, valor nutricional da silagem e balanço de nutrientes no solo pela colheita da planta de milho em diferentes alturas: 0,20; 0,40; 0,60; 0,80 e 1,00 m do solo. O delineamento experimental foi inteiramente casualizado, composto por 5 tratamentos com 5 repetições. Plantas representativas de cada parcela foram colhidas nas respectivas alturas e fragmentadas em uma ensiladeira. Este material foi homogeneizado e ensilado em silos experimentais de policloreto de vini...

Abstract This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of raising the cutting height of the corn plant destined to silage production, in relation to the dry biomass production and possible influence on the performance of confined lambs. The treatments tested were: SM20: Corn silage harvested at 20 cm height. SM80: Corn silage harvested at 80 cm height. Cutting at 80 cm from the ground reduced the dry biomass production by 2.375 kg DM ha-1, but did not reduce the carrying capacity and improved the digestibility of the feed by 4.59%, besides improving the carcass conversion, carcass transformation efficiency and carcass yield by 1.04%, 4.68% and 2.20%, respectively for animals fed silage of corn cut at 20 cm from the ground. Production of silage harvested farther from the ground provides smaller volumes per area, but increases the quality of the final feed and improves the performance of the animals.