Publication Date

1989

Description

The digestible energy content of silages is always less than that of the original green fodder. This energy difference can only be balanced in the daily fodder ration of dairy cows by the use of cereal grain supplement. Recently, there is a growing interest in mixed maize/sorghum silage cropping in Hungary and in Northern USA. The emphasized advantages of the system are: enhanced total silage production in drought prone regions and soils, higher protein content, crop diversification and lower seed costs (Scheuring, 1987). A big drawback of the system is undoubtedly that the digestible energy content of the mixture decreases with increas­ing amount of sorghum. In average it may be as high as 10 %. A lot of efforts have already been made to improve crop digestibility. Several workers added cellulolityc enzymes to crops at the time of ensiling. Olsen and Voelker (1961) and Owen (1962) reported that the added enzymes failed to increase the digestibility of alfalfa silage by ruminants. McCullough (1970) showed a 10 % increase in milk production and an increase in overall digestibility by the addition of 0.45 % cellulase to corn silage. Autrey et al. (1975) obtained more digestible dry matter content at increased rates of cellulase treatment (0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 g/kg), but differences were not sig­nificant. The effect of cellulase treatment may be influenced by the crop (lignin content, dry matter content) by the cellulase preparation (Henderson and Mc Donald, 1977), application rate and pretreatment of the crop. Mc Han (1986) using 3 % NaOH plus 0.5 % cellulase could significantly improve the digestibility of Coastal Bermudagrass silage. Our objective was to determine the effect of cellulase treat­ment combined with urea and bacterial inoculant on the quality and digestibility of maize and maize sorghum mixed silage. Urea was used to slow down the drop of pH during fermen­tation, to increase the final pH of the silages and the efficiency of cellulase by ammoniation.

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Effect of Cellulase and Microbial Inoculant on the Quality and Digestibility of Maize and Mixed Maize-Sorghum Silages

The digestible energy content of silages is always less than that of the original green fodder. This energy difference can only be balanced in the daily fodder ration of dairy cows by the use of cereal grain supplement. Recently, there is a growing interest in mixed maize/sorghum silage cropping in Hungary and in Northern USA. The emphasized advantages of the system are: enhanced total silage production in drought prone regions and soils, higher protein content, crop diversification and lower seed costs (Scheuring, 1987). A big drawback of the system is undoubtedly that the digestible energy content of the mixture decreases with increas­ing amount of sorghum. In average it may be as high as 10 %. A lot of efforts have already been made to improve crop digestibility. Several workers added cellulolityc enzymes to crops at the time of ensiling. Olsen and Voelker (1961) and Owen (1962) reported that the added enzymes failed to increase the digestibility of alfalfa silage by ruminants. McCullough (1970) showed a 10 % increase in milk production and an increase in overall digestibility by the addition of 0.45 % cellulase to corn silage. Autrey et al. (1975) obtained more digestible dry matter content at increased rates of cellulase treatment (0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 g/kg), but differences were not sig­nificant. The effect of cellulase treatment may be influenced by the crop (lignin content, dry matter content) by the cellulase preparation (Henderson and Mc Donald, 1977), application rate and pretreatment of the crop. Mc Han (1986) using 3 % NaOH plus 0.5 % cellulase could significantly improve the digestibility of Coastal Bermudagrass silage. Our objective was to determine the effect of cellulase treat­ment combined with urea and bacterial inoculant on the quality and digestibility of maize and maize sorghum mixed silage. Urea was used to slow down the drop of pH during fermen­tation, to increase the final pH of the silages and the efficiency of cellulase by ammoniation.