Effect of the inoculation of sugarcane silage with Lactobacillus hilgardii and Lactobacillus buchneri on feeding behavior and milk yield of dairy cows1

Abstract

Despite its low NDF digestibility, sugarcane is an option for feeding dairy cattle in tropical regions. We evaluated the effect of sugarcane silages inoculated with CCMA 0170 (LH; an epiphytic bacteria isolated from sugarcane) or with NCIMB 40788 (LB; a commercial strain isolated from temperate grasses) on dairy cow performance and feeding behavior. The microbial inoculums were previously grown in the laboratory to obtain 5 log cfu/g of fresh forage. Nine tons of each inoculated silage and a noninoculated control silage (CON) were harvested from the same field and stored for at least 35 d in experimental 20 × 2.1 × 0.4 m bunker silos. Fifteen Holstein cows in late lactation (336 ± 175 days in milk at the start of the experiment) received the treatments in five 3 × 3 Latin squares with 21-d periods. The diets contained 20% of DM of sugarcane silage and 41% of DM of corn silage. Milk yield was increased from 18.0 kg/d for CON to18.8 kg/d for LH, but LB did not elicit a detectable increase in milk yield (18.1 kg/d). The daily yields of fat, protein, lactose, and total solids were increased by LH. Daily DMI and total tract apparent digestibility of nutrients did not differ among treatments. Both inoculated silages reduced acetate and increased butyrate proportions in ruminal VFA, but only LH silage reduced the acetate to propionate ratio (3.0 vs 3.3). First meal duration was shorter for CON compared to LH and LB. The proportion of daily intake between 0700 and 1300 h tended to be increased, and the proportion between 1900 and 0700 h was reduced by LH. The inoculation of sugarcane silage with affected rumen fermentation profile and feeding behavior of late lactation dairy cows, increasing the yield of milk solids.

Dynamic Succession of Microbiota during Ensiling of Whole Plant Corn Following Inoculation with Lactobacillus buchneri and Lactobacillus hilgardii Alone or in Combination

“…The differences in key genera between published reports, and also from our study, are likely partly due to the different methods of identification used, as pointed out by Dunière et al [33] in the case of fungal populations. Santos et al [13] observed significant discrepancies in populations between samples due to geographic or environmental differences.…”

“…buchneri, were recently published [11,12]. Some strains were not only effective in increasing the fermentation and aerobic stability of sugar cane, but also in improving the feed intake and milk yield of dairy cows [13,14]. Commercial microbial silage additive formulations often combined different strains of LAB with contrasting functions, for example a fast fermenting strain and one with increasing aerobic stability, but few microbial diversity studies have tried to understand the successional patterns following inoculation with multiple strains.…”

Lactic Acid Bacteria as Microbial Silage Additives: Current Status and Future Outlook

“…Strains of this species are often observed in sugar cane silage [39,40] and provide increased aerobic stability levels for this challenging crop. Improvement in fermentation and aerobic stability of sugarcane silage allowed increasing DM intake and milk yield [41].…”

Effects of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated From Rumen Fluid and Feces of Dairy Cows on Fermentation Quality, Microbial Community, and in vitro Digestibility of Alfalfa Silage

“…Currently, most of LAB inoculants for ensiling were isolated from plant-derived materials, including fresh forage, silage, and so on (Zhang et al, 2015(Zhang et al, , 2018Ni et al, 2017b;Wang et al, 2017). However, plant-derived LAB inoculants sometimes cannot improve animal performance (Kristensen et al, 2010;Santos et al, 2017;Silva et al, 2017). For example, Khota et al (2017) reported that although LAB from sweet corn stover silage could improve the silage quality, it did not show positive effect on in vitro dry matter (DM) digestibility and gas production (GP) of beef cattle.…”