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Fresh and ensiled forage plants—total composition, silage losses and the prediction of silage composition from the crop
Author(s) -
Udén P.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
grass and forage science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1365-2494
pISSN - 0142-5242
DOI - 10.1111/gfs.12328
Subject(s) - silage , fermentation , dry matter , composition (language) , chemistry , forage , starch , crop , agronomy , food science , red clover , fodder , neutral detergent fiber , zoology , biology , linguistics , philosophy
Twenty ley and whole‐crop samples were analysed before and after ensiling to determine the proportion of dry matter ( DM ) that could be accounted for by the sum of 12 chemical assays for ash, ash‐excluded‐amylase‐treated neutral detergent fibre ( aNDF om), starch, water‐soluble carbohydrates ( WSC ), pectin, crude protein ( CP ), CP in aNDF om ( CP ndf), ammonia, crude fat, phenolics, plant organic acids and liquid fermentation products (acids and alcohols). Crop components, utilized during silage fermentation and the possibility of predicting silage composition from that of the crop, were also investigated. Samples consisted of timothy and red and white clover, harvested at early and late maturities in two cuts per maturity and of whole‐crop barley, wheat and maize, harvested at early, intermediate and late stages of maturity. Ley crops were wilted to reach a DM content of approximately 400 g/kg, whereas whole crops ( WC ) were not wilted (151–757 g DM /kg) before ensiling. The average sum of analytes was 1022 and 981 g/kg DM for crops and silages respectively. An overall closeness to complete recovery indicates that no major plant components were missing from the analyses. Relative proportions of pectin, plant organic acids and phenolics, which are rarely analysed, were approximately 60:40:2 (w/w). Ash, aNDF om, crude fat and CP were almost completely recovered after ensiling, whereas partial metabolism reduced recoveries of starch (81%), CP ndf (62%), plant organic acids (65%), pectin (64%) and WSC (29%). Only the four analytes with high silage recoveries could be reasonably well predicted from parent crop levels with mean prediction error from 0.065 for aNDF om to 0.167 for crude fat.