The effect of carbohydrate additive and inoculation on quality of red clover silage

In this experiment, wilted masses of red clover of cultivar K-17 from the first cut was ensiled in three treatments: a) no additives, b) with the addition of corn (6% of biomass) and c) with the addition of inoculant BioStabil Plus. The experiment design was according to the method of a completely random plan (single factorial trial) in triplicates. Based on the results it can be concluded that the wilted biomass of red clover can be successfully ensiled without additives. However, the inoculation of red clover biomass achieves the most favourable pH value (4.20), the lowest level of degradation of the protein expressed in the amount of NH3-N (107.7 gkg-1 N), the largest production of lactic acid (91.3 gkg-1 DM) and acetic acid (42.6 gkg-1 DM), in the absence of butyric acid. Adding maize meal in the amount of 6% contributed to somewhat more favourable fermentation and increase of the energy value of silage. When using the DLG and Weissbach methods for assessing the quality of silage, all silages were classified into the first class. Contrary to this, according to the Zelter method, control and inoculated silages were evaluated as class III, because of the large amounts of acetic acid. In practices inoculants based on homo-and hetero-fermentative bacteria of lactic acid fermentation are recommended for use, because the increased production of acetic acid contributes positively to te aerobic stability of silage.