Effects of a novel dual purpose silage additive on aerobic stability and fermentation characteristics of whole crop maize silage after a short time of ensiling

Abstract

Introduction Recently, a novel Lactococcus lactis O224 DSM11037 lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strain has been introduced, which is superior in oxygen scavenging and also relatively fast in reducing pH (Hindrichsen et al., 2012). Combining this L. lactis O224 DSM11037 strain with Lactobacillus buchneri DSM 22501 have shown better results on aerobic stability than previously seen with combinations of L. buchneri and high lactate producing strains such as L. plantarum at 90 days of fermentation. Recent years, though, many producers have faced feed shortage problems due to season variation. This has forced them to shorten the fermentation time of silage with poor aerobic stability as a negative consequence. The objective of the current study was therefore to evaluate the effi cacy of the new L. lactis O224 DSM11037/L. buchneri DSM 22501 combination on fermentation parameters and aerobic stability at even very short ensiling times. The additive was compared to an untreated reference. Materials and methods Silages were prepared from whole crop maize containing 34.4 % DM and 3.02 % water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) on fresh matter basis, respectively. Forage was treated the following: no additive (UT) and SiloSolve FC, containing L. buchneri DSM22501 and L. lactis O224 DSM11037 (TA), Chr. Hansen A/S, Denmark. The target application rate was 150,000 cfu/g forage. The untreated control (UT) received the appropriate amount of sterile water. Whole crop maize was ensiled in 3 l laboratory silos and each treatment was replicated 5 times. Silages were analyzed on day 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 of storage at 20oC. Aerobic stability (AS) of silages was determined from a 7 day aerobic challenge period after each fermentation time (day 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 of storage). This was done by monitoring the temperature increase in silages stored aerobically in insulated PVC-tubes at 20 ºC ambient temperature. Aerobic stability is determined by the amo