Corn stover

Corn stover is the leaves, stalks and cobs of corn plants left in a field after the grain has been harvested, making up roughly half the total yield of a corn crop. It is comparable to the straw left behind from other cereal grasses and, in Britain, is sometimes called corn straw; a batch of stover typically also picks up some weeds and grasses from the field. Farmers use corn stover as livestock fodder, for silage, as bedding material, and as a soil amendment, and it is also studied as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol and other bioenergy uses. Its composition includes roughly 37 percent cellulose, 18 percent lignin, and a heating value of about 18.6 megajoules per kilogram.