The results suggested that forage silages under tropical climate conditions showed enhanced acetate fermentation, while high DM materials showed limited fermentation. Lactobacillus and Enterobacter were the most probable genera responsible for tropical silage fermentation.

Aims: To effectively use woody plant resources to prepare silage for ruminants, Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing was applied to study the microbial network and fermentation characteristics of paper mulberry (PM) silage prepared with corn meal (CM) and rice bran (RB) as exogenous additives. Methods and Results: PM is rich in nutrients and contains more than 26% crude protein in dry matter. After ensiling, the microbial diversity and abundance in PM, CM and RB decreased due to the anaerobic environment and acidic conditions. The CM-treated PM silage accelerated the conversion of the dominant microbial community from harmful bacteria to lactic acid bacteria and promoted lactic acid fermentation. When RB was used to treat PM silage, Enterobacter and Clostridium species became the main bacterial community during ensiling, leading to butyric acid fermentation and protein decomposition. Compared with RB, CM increased the amount of fermentation substrates, changed the microbial community structure and affected metabolic pathways (global metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism), which improved the flavour and quality of the PM silage. Conclusions: The CM addition of improved the fermentation quality of PM silage, with PM + CM being the ideal combination. The SMRT sequencing technology could accurately obtain specific details of the microbial networks and fermentation characteristics. Our results indicate that PM can be used as a potential high-protein silage in animal production. Significance and Impact of the Study: In tropics, the effective use of abundant natural biomass resources such as woody plants to prepare silage for feed preservation can solve the problem of restricting livestock production due to the shortage of feed in the dry season. SMRT sequencing technology was used to accurately analyze the microbial network and fermentation characteristics of woody silage prepared with CM as an exogenous additive to improve the fermentation quality of silage.

The objective of this study was to select lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from the rumen fluid and feces of dairy cows, and evaluate their effects on silage quality of alfalfa after 30 or 60 days of ensiling. One hundred and four LAB strains were isolated from rumen fluid and feces of six dairy cows, of which four strains (Lactobacillus plantarum F1, L. plantarum F50, Lactobacillus salivarius L100, and Lactobacillus fermentum L120) and one commercial inoculant (GFG) isolated from forage were employed for further study. The silages treated with F1 had the lowest (P < 0.05) pH value and the highest (P < 0.05) lactic acid (LA) content in all treatments. Besides, higher (P < 0.05) in vitro digestibility was also observed in F1-treated silage after 60 days of ensiling. The microbial analysis showed that the Lactobacillus abundance in the F1-treated silages increased to 60.32%, higher than other treatments (5.12-47.64%). Our research indicated that strain F1 could be an alternative silage inoculant, and dairy cows could be a source for obtaining excellent LAB for ensiling.