Red clover at early flower bud formation is difficult to ensile. For efficient improvement of the quality of leguminous silages, chemical additives are used. The present research focuses on the effectiveness of biological additives with different composition on the fermentation and quality of clover silage

Kaldmäe, H.

Kärt, O.

Olt, A.

Songisepp, E.

English

University of Kentucky

University of Kentucky UKnowledge International Grassland Congress Proceedings XX International Grassland Congress Effect of Biological Additives in Red Clover – Timothy Conservation A. Olt Estonian Agricultural University, Kreutzwaldi H. Kaldmäe Estonian Agricultural University, Kreutzwaldi E. Songisepp University of Tartu, Estonia O. Kärt Estonian Agricultural University, Kreutzwaldi Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc  Part of the Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, and the Weed Science Commons This document is available at https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/20/satellitesymposium2/9 The XX International Grassland Congress took place in Ireland and the UK in June-July 2005. The main congress took place in Dublin from 26 June to 1 July and was followed by post congress satellite workshops in Aberystwyth, Belfast, Cork, Glasgow and Oxford. The meeting was hosted by the Irish Grassland Association and the British Grassland Society. Proceedings Editor: D. A. McGilloway Publisher: Wageningen Academic Publishers, The Netherlands © Wageningen Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, 2005 The copyright holder has granted the permission for posting the proceedings here. This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Plant and Soil Sciences at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in International Grassland Congress Proceedings by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact UKnowledge@lsv.uky.edu.  Silage production and utilisation 200Effect of biological additives in red clover – timothy conservation A. Olt1, H. Kaldmäe1, E. Songisepp2 and O. Kärt1 1Estonian Agricultural University, Animal Nutrition, Kreutzwaldi 1, 51014 Tartu, Estonia, Email: slabor@eau.ee, 2University of Tartu, Institute of Microbiology, Ravila 19, 50411 Tartu, Estonia    Keywords: silage, fermentation, additives, red clover, timothy  Introduction  Red clover at early flower bud formation is difficult to ensile. For efficient improvement of the quality of leguminous silages, chemical additives are used. The present research focuses on the effectiveness of biological additives with different composition on the fermentation and quality of clover silage.  Materials and methods  The chemical composition, nutritive value and quality of silage, prepared from red clover-timothy mixture (50% red clover variety ‘Jõgeva 433’) at early bud formation stage, were investigated. For this purpose test silages were prepared. Raw material for silage was cut at the height of 5 cm, wilted for 24 h, chopped into 2 cm pieces, supplemented with chemical (AIV) or 4 variants of biological additives containing combinations of 4 Lactobacillus sp. belonging into facultative and obligatory heterofermentative groups and conserved into 3 l jars. In 90 days the jars were opened. Silage was analysed for dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude fibre (CF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF), pH and ammonia-N in total N, according to generally accepted methods; ethanol, volatile fatty acids, lactic acids (LA) were analysed with gas chromatograph. Biological additives were the following: I-1, I-2, I-3 and I-4.  Results  DM losses during fermentation were the lowest in the silage treated with AIV additive (4.8%), in silages treated with biological additives these values were I-1 5.2%, I-2 10%, I-3 11.6%, I-4 9.7%, respectively and in untreated silage (17.4%). The chemical compositions of silages are presented in Table 1. The quality of silages, treated with biological and chemical additives, was high, compared to that of the untreated silage. Figure 1 illustrates the content of lactic acid (LA), acetic acid (AA), butyric acid (BA) and ethanol (E). Lactic acid concentration was higher in the silages inoculated with biological additives (within the range of 96.4 and 127.5 g/kg in DM) compared to that in the AIV treated silages (44.3 g/kg in DM) or the untreated silages (73.7 g/kg in DM). The content of AA in studied silages remained between 8.15 to 9.7 g/kg in DM. The content of BA in DM was 23.9 g/kg in the untreated silage and below 0.4 g/kg in the remainder of the silages. Biological additives favoured lactic acid fermentation by increasing LA content. However, as to the nutrition of ruminants, such a high LA content does not play a significant role in animal metabolism, as normally the ruminal LA content is low (McDonald et al., 1991).  Table 1  Chemical composition of silages Item Untreated I-1 I-2 I-3 I-4 AIV DM (g/kg) 256 294 279 274 279 295 Crude protein (g/kg DM) 178 167 170 172 174 172 Crude fibre (g/kg DM) 209 204 195 192 189 185 Nitrogen-free extract (g/kg DM) 467 496 497 497 499 506 ME (MJ/kg DM) 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.1 10.2 10.1 NH3–N (% total N) 6.3 1.5 1.6 1.6 1.7 3.9 pH 5.0 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.8   Conclusions  The use of biological additives in ensiling pre-wilted material, rich in red clover, improved fermentation and silage quality, also decreased DM losses.  References McDonald, P., A.R. Henderson & S.J.E. Heron (1991). The biochemistry of silage. Chalcombe publication, UK, 340 pp.  This work was funded by ESF G4985.  Figure 1  The content of lactic-, acetic- and butyric acids, and ethanol in the test silages 020406080100120140LA AA BA Eg/kg DMUTI-1I-2I-3I-4AIV

Effect of Biological Additives in Red Clover – Timothy Conservation

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Effect of Biological Additives in Red Clover – Timothy Conservation

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