The effect of saccharide additives on the fermentative quality of silage

It is essential to establish a more rational and stable ensiling method for better economic production of ruminant feed. Application of saccharides as silage additives is a usual practice for making high quality silage. However, the efficiency of production of lactic acid by lactic acid bacteria for the different types of saccharides may differ,which may affect the fermentation quality of silage. Experiments were carried out to obtain fundamental data for making good quality silage. Oats, guineagrass, wilted paddy rice and alfalfa (aftermath) were ensiled with or without saccharide additives in 1-L laboratory silos. The additives examined were: 1) pentose (xylose, ribose, arabinose), 2) hexose (galactose, glucose, fructose,mannit), 3) disaccharide (maltose, sucrose), 4) polysaccharide (starch). Composition of organic acid and pH were investigated at 7 and 50 days after ensiling. The quality of each oats silage was high because of high water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content and low lactic buffering capacity (LBC). While, the fermentation quality of other materials with low WSC, such as alfalfa, were relatively low. With regards to organic acid components, pentose saccharides as silage additive resulted in the production of higher acetic acid than other forms of saccharides. Because, in theory 1 mole of pentose is fermented to 1 mole of lactic and acetic acid by lactic acid bacteria. Starch s silage additive did not influence the fermentation quality of silage. Among the silage additives, hexose saccharides efficiently produced lactic acid, because in theory 1 mole of hexose is fermented to 2 moles of lactic acid by lactic acid bacteria. Thus hexose was considered as the best additive compared to the other forms of saccharides. Silage treated with mannit was significantly low in acetic acid content, because heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria can not ferment mannit