Chemical evaluation of elephant grass silages cultivar Taiwan A-148

Abstract

Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schum.), Taiwan A-148 cultivar was cut for silage at 55 days of age, being treated as follows: absence and presence of mollasses 4%, and three levels of moisture: in the forage: natural, wilting during eight hours, and wilting during 12 1/2 hours. Corn (Zea mays L.) silage for comparative evaluation was also used. As experimental silos, metalic barrels with 200 liter of capacity were utilized. Excessive moisture caused great proteic degradation (20.22% of NH₃/N) in the control silage, which, however, showed 17.59% of lactic acid, only 0.078 of butyric acid in the city matter, and pH 3.83. Mollasses addition did not improve silage quality, exception made to the pH value, which presented a significant reduction from 3.94 to 3.78. High wilting significantly lowered the butyric and lactic acid levels, NH₃/N ratio, and silage density, but the pH value was higher (3.99). Elephant grass showed higher levels of lactic acid than the corn did. But corn silage presented the mallest pH and NH₃/N ratio values. It was concluded that wilting is necessary and profitable, when the grass moisture is excessive.