Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the effects of post-harvest storage duration and wheat variety on the digestibility and energy content of new season wheat fed to finishing pigs. Two wheat varieties (Shi and Zhong) were harvested in 2013 and stored in the warehouse of the Fengning Pig Experimental Base at China Agricultural University for 3, 6, 9, or 12 mo. For each storage period, 12 barrows were placed in metabolism crates and allotted to diets containing 1 of the 2 wheat varieties in a randomized complete block design. The experimental diets contained 97.34% wheat and 2.66% of a vitamin and trace mineral premix. With an extension of storage duration from 3 mo to 12 mo, the gross energy (GE) and crude protein (CP) of the wheat decreased by 2.0% and 12.01%, respectively, while the concentration of neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and starch content increased by 30.26%, 19.08%, and 2.46%, respectively. Total non-starch polysaccharide, total arabinose, total xylose and total mannose contents decreased by 46.27%, 45.80%, 41.71%, and 75.66%, respectively. However, there were no significant differences in the chemical composition between the two wheat varieties with the exception of ADF which was approximately 13.37% lower in Shi. With an extension of storage duration from 3 mo to 12 mo, the digestible energy (DE), metabolizable energy (ME) content and the apparent total tract digestibility of GE, CP, dry matter, organic matter, ether extract, ADF and metabolizability of energy in wheat decreased linearly (p<0.01) by 5.74%, 7.60%, 3.75%, 3.88%, 3.50%, 2.47%, 26.22%, 27.62%, and 3.94%, respectively. But the digestibility of NDF changed quadratically (p<0.01). There was an interaction between wheat variety and storage time for CP digestibility (p<0.05), such that the CP digestibility of variety Zhong was stable during 9 mo of storage, while the CP digestibility of variety Shi decreased (p<0.05). In conclusion, the GE, DE, and ME of wheat was stable during the first 3 to 6 mo of post-harvest storage, and decreased during the following 6 to 12 mo of storage under the conditions of this study.
Highlights
Wheat has become an attractive alternative energy source for swine production in China due to a shortage of corn and cost
With an extension of storage duration from 3 mo to 12 (p
ether extract (EE), organic matter (OM), and metabolizable energy (ME) decreased significantly with increasing (1999) reported that the total amylose content in wheat storage time, and the digestibility of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) changed in a remained unchanged during 6 mo of storage because of a quadratic manner (p
Summary
Wheat has become an attractive alternative energy source for swine production in China due to a shortage of corn and cost. Many factors influence the nutritional value of wheat (Gutierrez-Alamo et al, 2008), such as variety (Anderson and Bell, 1983), growing region (Dusel et al, 1997), growing season (Choct et al, 1999) and conditions of post-harvest storage (Kim et al, 2003). New season wheat usually has a low, highly variable, Submitted Jan. 7, 2015; Revised Mar. 3, 2015; Accepted Apr. 10, 2015 metabolizable energy (ME) content (Choct and Hughes, 1997), and its detrimental effect on poultry performance has been reported in many studies (Huyghebaert and Schoner, 1999; Scott and Pierce, 2001). The changes in the nutritional value of new season wheat during storage have only been reported once in pigs (Cadogan et al, 2003). After 10 mo of storage, the feed intake (of all 10 wheat varieties), and daily gain (9 of 10 wheat varieties) of the pigs were significantly higher, while feed conversion
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