Mljekarstvo (Oct 2005)
Forage quality on family farms in Croatia: monitoring corn silage quality over the two winter feeding seasons of dairy cows
Abstract
The aim of the applied research project: “Forage evaluation by NIR spectroscopy” was to monitor the nutritive value of grass silage, corn silage and hay on family farms in Croatia over 6-month feeding in each of the two investigation years (from November 2003 to May 2004 and from November 2004 to May 2005). The aim of this paper was to determine the nutritive value of corn silage in the second year and to compare the results with the first year of the investigation. Extension service staff recommended dairy nutrition based on monthly silage analysis by NIRS instrument (Foss, Model 6500). The following parameters were determined: dry matter (DM), dry matter corrected (CDM), organic matter (OM,) crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), metabolic energy (ME), pH value, fermented ME in ME (FME/ME), starch and OM digestibility in DM (D-value). The results show desirable DM (352.99 g kg-1), high starch (339.86 g kg-1ST) and high NDF (422.65 g kg-1ST) content. In average, the silage was stabile (pH 3.65) with suitable FME/ME (79%) and D-value ( 71.6%), but with low CP content (58.96 g kg-1ST). Statistically significant differences among family farms were observed for CDM (P<0.05), D-value (P<0.05), NDF (P<0.05), pH (P<0.05), starch (P<0.05), ME (P<0.05) and OM (P<0.05). The samples from the second year of the investigation had significantly lower CDM (P<0.01), CP (P<0.01) and FME/ME (P<0.01).
