Effect of additives and filling methods on whole plant corn silage quality, fermentation characteristics and in situ digestibility.

Objective This project aimed to evaluate the effects of both different additives and filling methods on nutritive quality, fermentation profile, and in situ digestibility of whole plant corn silage. Methods Whole plant corn forage harvested at 26.72 % dry matter (DM) was chopped and treated with two filling methods, 1) fill silos at one time (F1), 2) fill silos at three times (F3), packing samples into one / three silo capacity at the first day, another one / three capacity at the second day, then one / three at the third day, three replicates. For each replicate, samples were treated with three additives, a) control (CTRL, no additive), b) Sila-Max™ (MAX, Ralco Nutrition Inc., Marshall, Minnesota, U.S.A.), and c) Sila-Mix™ (MIX, Ralco Nutrition Inc., Marshall, Minnesota, U.S.A.). With three replicates of each secondary treatment, there were nine silos, 54 silos in total. Each silo had a packing density of 137.61 kg of DM / m3. All silos were weighed and stored in lab at ambient temperature. Results After 60 d of ensiling, all items showed good silage fermentation under MAX filled one time or three times (P<0.01). Higher silage quality for all additives was obtained at filling one time than that filled three times (P<0.01). The highest DM and lowest DM loss rate (DMLR) occurred to MAX treatment at two filling methods (P<0.01); Digestibility of ADF (ADFD), NDF (NDFD) and CP (CPD) had the same results as silage quality (P<0.01). Yield of digestible DM (dDM) and digestible NDF (dNDF) also showed higher value under MAX especially for filling one time (P<0.05). Conclusion All corn silages showed good fermentation attributes (pH<4.0). The forage filled one time had higher silage quality than that filled three times (P<0.01). MAX with homofermentative LAB enhanced the lactic acid (LA) fermentation, silage quality and nutrient digestibility, and so improved the digestible nutrient yield.