Sel’skokhozyaistvennaya Biologiya [Agricultural Biology], 2018, Vol. 53, ¹ 2, p. 258-269.
(how to cite this article)

doi: 10.15389/agrobiology.2018.2.258eng

UDC 636.085.52:579.64

 

BIOLOGY OF ALFALFA SILAGE MAKING (review)

Yu.A. Pobednov, V.M. Kosolapov

Williams Federal Science Center for Fodder Production and Agroecology, Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations, korp. 3, Nauchnyi gorodok, Lobnya, Moscow Province, 141055 Russia, e-mail vnii.kormov@yandex.ru (✉ corresponding author V.M. Kosolapov)

ORCID:
Pobednov Yu.A. orcid.org/0000-0001-8701-009x
Kosolapov V.M. orcid.org/0000-0001-6311-023x

Received March 27, 2017

 

Alfalfa dry matter is characterized by the less content of sugar, celluloses and hemicelluloses and more quantity of pectin in comparison to grasses (P. Mc-Donald et al., 1970). The high level of pectin provides increased rate of feed fermentation in a rumen (E.F. Annison, et al., 1962). This leads to improved assimilation of alfalfa silage dry matter by cattle, despite the low energy level unlike to cereal grasses silage (Ì. Grabov, 2016). As a result, the nutrients intake and productivity of cows increase. However, there are some particularities in qualitative alfalfa silage- and haylage-making, such as absence of abundant Enterobacteriaceae bacteria on the alfalfa plants (R.A. Shurchno et al., 2008), unlike cereal grasses (Yu.A. Pobednov et al., 2015). Thereof the basic kind of alfalfa silage and haylage spoilage is butyric (putrid) fermentation. With due regard to this fact, the main principle of alfalfa conservation is based on the known rule of G.W. Wieringa (1963), which tells about increasing of clostridium bacteria sensitivity to active acidity (pH) of feed when dry matter content in plants rises. This allows providing feed preservation under significantly higher parameter of pH, than at ensiling the freshly-cut mass (F. Weissbach, 2012). However, fodder must reach fast acidification with determined pH value to eliminate a butyric fermentation at each dry matter content. But this condition especially difficult for performance at alfalfa ensiling, because plants contain much weakly-bound water even at 35 % dry matter content, in contrast to cereal grasses and red clover. At weak acidification, it can lead to intensive proteolysis (X.S. Guo et al., 2012) with ammonia accumulation and an increase in buffer capacity of feed. As a result, pH of alfalfa silage does not decline to necessary level for elimination the clostridium bacteria growth during the long period and it causes to accumulation a butyric acid and the products of putrid decay of the proteins. It is possible to reduce the intensity of proteolysis by increased feed acidification with addition of liquid organic acids or inoculants of lactic acid bacteria combined with sugar. Another way is ensiling of alfalfa wilted to ≥ 40 % dry matter content followed by application of the lactic acid bacteria-based inoculants. At this level of dehydration, the content of sugar in dry matter increases 1.6 times (Yu.A. Pobednov et al., 2016), and addition of the bacterial inoculants leads to increasing a degree of feed acidification as well as storage and feed-out stability (F. Weissbach, 2012). Application of enzymes in ensiling alfalfa wilted to ≥ 40 % dry matter is one more advanced method of this forage crop conservation (À.À. Anisimov, 2006). Another effective approach of alfalfa silage-making is using enzyme additives combined with lactic acid bacteria (Ì. Grabov, 2016).

Keywords: alfalfa, proteolysis, dry matter content, acidification, lactic acid bacteria-based inoculants, enzymes, silage quality.

 

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