In Mexico corn silage is widely fed to dairy and beef cattle, and in the market, farmers have many maize hybrids and native cultivars with some sowing strategies to choose from. The objective of the study was to determine total forage yield and by component (leaf, stem, ear and husk, kg DM ha⁻¹) in 4 maize cultivars under 2 sowing strategies. Maize cultivars were 2 hybrids: Gladiator and Fog, and 2 native: Red and White; sowing strategies were single and double row, the former was seeding in rows every 80 cm, the latter in pairs of rows separated 40 cm with 80 cm between consecutive pairs of rows. Seeding rate was 80 000 plants ha⁻¹. Experimental design was a completely randomized design in a factorial arrangement 4 (maize cultivars) × 2 (sowing strategies) with 4 replicates and the experimental unit was a 4.8 × 3 m plot. Harvest was 135 d after sowing. The cultivar × sowing strategy interaction did not influence (P > 0.05) any of the variables measured. There was a trend (P = 0.10) for native cultivars to show higher total forage yield than the hybrids (25408 vs. 21481.5 respectively); while double-row sowing tended (P = 0.19) to promote on the average 12% higher total forage yield than single-row (24,763 vs 22,203). Native cultivars gave 63% higher (P < 0.05) stem yield (14635.5) than the average of the 2 hybrids (8958) which showed similar (P > 0.05) stem yield. Gladiator showed the lowest (P < 0.05) leaf yield (2,677), 34% lower than the average yield observed in the other 3 cultivars (3589.7) which showed no difference (P > 0.05) among them. Both hybrids gave 48% higher (P < 0.05) ear yield than the average of the 2 native cultivars (6939.5 vs. 4672) which gave similar (P > 0.05) ear yield. Only in leaf yield did sowing strategy show an influence, double-row gave 18% more (P < 0.05) leaf than single-row (3646 vs. 3078 respectively). Native cultivars might show higher total forage yield than hybrids but of lower quality as the formers have higher amount of stems and lower of ears. It was concluded that total forage yield and by component are influenced by maize cultivar and sowing strategy and that total forage yield should not be the only one attribute to decide on which maize cultivar and sowing strategy to use on the farm.