The Effect of a Silage Inoculant on Silage Quality, Aerobic Stability, and Meat Production on Farm Scale

Abstract EN

The effect of inoculation on nutrient content, fermentation, aerobic stability, and beef cattle performance for whole-plant corn silage treated with a commercial product (blend of homo- and heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria, BSM, blend of Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus plantarum, and Lactobacillus brevis, DSM numbers 3530, 19457, and 23231, resp.), was compared to a control treatment with no silage additives (CT).

The material had a DM of 323 g/kg, crude protein, and water-soluble carbohydrate concentrations of 87.9 and 110.5 g/kg DM, respectively.

BSM increased the fermentation rate with a significantly deeper pH (P<0.01), a significant increase in the total organic acids concentration (P<0.05), more lactic acid (P<0.01), and numerically more acetic acid compared to CT.

BSM significantly decreased the concentrations of butyric acid (P<0.01), ethanol, and ammonia-N compared to the CT.

BSM-treated silage decreased DM by 3.0 % (P<0.01) and had a higher digestible energy and a higher metabolizable energy concentration by 2.3 (P<0.01) and 1.00 % (P<0.05), respectively, compared to untreated silage.

Aerobic stability improved by more than 2 days in BSM silage.

The DM intake of silage treated with BSM increased by 6.14 %, and improved weight gain and the feed conversion by 8.0 (P<0.01) and 3.4%.