Abstract
Cell wall content generally is regarded as the most important factor affecting forage utilization because it comprises the major fraction of forage dry matter and is correlated with forage intake and digestibility. The experiment was carried out to evaluate the cell wall constituents of ensiled pea - oat mixtures sown at five different seeding rates. Three effects were studied: application of bacterial inoculant, seeding rate of pea and oat in the mixtures and stages of plant development. The NDF (Neutral Detergent Fiber), ADF (Acid Detergent Fiber), hemicellulose, lignin and DMD (Dry Matter Digestibility) were determined in silages. Pea and oat were grown in binary mixtures at the experimental field of the Institute for forage crops, Krusevac - Serbia, and were tested at five different mixture rates: pure pea and pure oat crop, 25% pea + 75% oat, 50% pea + 50% oat, 75% pea + 25% oat. Application of bacterial inoculant affected lower content of NDF and hemicellulose (P< 0.05). Content of cell wall constituents decreased with increasing pea content in the mixtures, but DMD increased. On the other hand, content of cell wall constituents increased with plant growth and development, but DMD decreased.
Highlights
Good quality silage and hay are important for the nutrition of ruminants, as well as for the quality and safety of dairy products
All three research factors had a significant impact on the Neutral detergent fiber (NDF) content in pea and oat silages (Table 1)
Pure oat silage contained the highest amount of NDF and compared to pure pea crop silage was richer in this cell wall constituent by 46.5%
Summary
Good quality silage and hay are important for the nutrition of ruminants, as well as for the quality and safety of dairy products. In terms of the nutritive value of the forage, the crop composition at harvest has a major impact on the ensiling process and quality of silage (Buxton and OKiely, 2003). The quality of grasses and legumes decreases with the growth and plant development, primarily due to changes in the leaf to stem ratio, as well as due to a decreas in the content of nutrients in the stem. The quality of leguminous plants such as pea, cereals and combined crops of these legumes with cereals does not change in the same way with growth and development as those changes occur in grasses and other legumes, due to the influence of seed chemical composition and seed yield on quality (Salawu et al, 2001). Pea forages generally have higher crude protein content and in vitro dry matter digestibility and lower NDF and ADF than oat (Marković et al, 2017)
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