Relationship of Forage Maturity to Digestibility and Animal Gain When Silage Is Untreated or Treated With Formic Acid

Abstract

Cer-osn, F. W. 1977. Relarionship

Prediction of liveweight gain by growing cattle fed silages of contrasting digestibility, supplemented with or without barley

“…Composition of the three silages is shown in Thomas et al (1988) Calder (1977) and Martinsson (1990), DM digestibility measured in vitro declined with forage maturity. Surprisingly, NDF and ADF increased between silages E and M and then declined between silages M and L. However, lignification followed the expected pattern, with 5.8% in silage E, 6.5%0 silage M and 9.lo/o in silage L. A similar observation was made by Seoane et al (1991), who suggested that the water stress and temperature prevailing during the week before harvest could affect ADF and NDF values more than the age of the plant.…”

Effect of Steam-Treated Grass Silage on Animal Gain

“…Plant Sci. 622 89-94 (Jan. 1982) bloom stage, which converted to animal gain per hectare of 465 kg for vegetative stage and 275 kg at bloom stage (Calder 1977). When forage is not of the highest possible quality, feeding ground barley with the silage is usually beneficial.…”