Digestion by sheep of silages prepared from mixtures of tropical grasses and legumes

Abstract

SUMMARYFour silage diets were prepared from tropical grass and legume mixtures and fed to intestinally fistulated sheep to determine the sites and extent of digestion of the different silage components in the digestive tract. Pangola grass (Digitaria decumbens) was ensiled either alone or with the addition, 33% (w/w), of leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala cv. Cunningham), gliricidia (Gliricidia sepium) or cowpea (Vigna unguiculata cv. Caloona). All forages were grown at the University of Queensland farm in 1985. All silages were well preserved as indicated by low pH (< 4·1), ammonia N (< 9% total N), acetic acid (< 13 g/kg dry matter (DM)) and ethanol (< 19 g/kg DM) contents, and high DM (> 290 g/kg) and lactic acid (> 41 g/kg DM) contents. The inclusion of leucaena and gliricidia significantly increased the total N content of the silages. The addition of legumes at ensiling significantly increased rumen ammonia N (pangola 59 mg N/l, legume diets 110–115 mg N/l) and the proportion of propionic acid in rumen fluid. Sheep given pangola + leucaena silages had significantly higher DM intakes (66·3 g/kg W0·75 per day) than sheep given pangola and pangola + cowpea silages (52·4 and 53·2 g/kg W0·75 per day respectively). The inclusion of gliricidia significantly depressed silage intake (43·1 g/kg W0·75 per day). There were no significant effects of diet on DM (551–609 g/kg) and organic matter (550–612 g/rkg) digestibility. Sheep given pangola + leucaena silages had higher N intakes, N balances, rates and efficiencies of microbial N synthesis and total non-ammonia N (NAN) flows to the small intestine than did sheep given the other silages. Apparent degradabilities of silage N in the rumen were similar for all diets (0·491–0·559 g N/kg N intake), but sheep given pangola + leucaena silages had lower true (corrected for endogenous N) N degradabilities (0·648 g N/kg N intake) than those given the other diets (0·751–0·775 g N/kg N intake). The values obtained in this experiment were compared with those reported for temperate grass silages, and it was concluded that whilst the digestibility of tropical grass/legume silages was low, intakes and rumen fermentation characteristics were similar to those found for temperate grass silages.