Agriculture (Jan 2023)

Impact—Shredding Processing of Whole-Plant Corn: Machine Performance, Physical Properties, and In Situ Ruminant Digestion

  • David A. Pintens,
  • Kevin J. Shinners,
  • Joshua C. Friede,
  • Matthew F. Digman,
  • Kenneth F. Kalscheur

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13010160
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
p. 160

Abstract

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An intensive processing mechanism that combined impact and shredding was applied to create physical disruption of whole-plant corn as a means to increase in situ dry matter (DM) digestion in lactating dairy cows. A ratio of treatment leachate conductivity relative to that of an ultimately processed treatment, defined as a processing level index, was used to quantify material physical disruption. Two processing levels were compared to a control treatment, which applied conventional chopping and kernel processing. The non-grain fraction was substantially size-reduced by processing such that only 28% to 51% by mass of this material remained greater than 6.4 mm length. After processing with the experimental processor, greater than 85% of kernels passed through a 4.75 mm screen, and the corn silage processing score (CSPS) was 18 to 27 percentage points greater than the control. The highly fiberized material was more compliant; thus, compacted density was 9% to 17% greater than the control. During in situ digestion experiments, processing significantly increased the rapidly soluble DM fraction by 10 percentage points and the extent of DM disappearance by 5 percentage points through 16 h incubation.

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