Issues of forage quality under industrial milk production in the south of Ukraine

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine the average quality of traditional forage (maize silage and alfalfa haylage) and innovative dietary components – rye silage on the example of average milk production farms in Odesa Oblast with moderate and intensive levels of technological process and to determine the impact of the risky land use zone in the South of Ukraine against the background of global warming on the quality of these dietary ingredients in order to determine further directions of forage production in the southern region of Ukraine. Scientific and economic experiments were conducted in Odesa Oblast according to the methods generally accepted in dairy farming, and laboratory studies of corn silage, alfalfa haylage, rye silage samples in a specialized laboratory for forage research using the NIRS technique were used to assess the quality of forages. NIRS has been successfully used in the prediction of nutritional value through direct scanning of forage samples. The analysis of corn silage shows that the basic indicators of its quality, such as dry matter content, metabolizable energy concentration, pH, level of digestibility of organic matter as a percentage of total dry matter, and starch content are below the existing standards, because due to hot weather conditions, silage is often forced to be harvested during the suboptimal phase of its maturity. An assessment of the mineral composition of corn, rye and alfalfa silage shows that the indicators are typical, taking into account the specifics of each crop in the southern region of Ukraine, so the existing deficit of manganese, cobalt, zinc and copper can be covered with the use of specialized premixes. Due to the difficulties of agrotechnical cultivation of corn silage and alfalfa haylage, which has recently developed in the risky land use zone of southern Ukraine and against the background of global warming, fodder crops have to be grown in more favorable (wet) seasons of the year, such as winter rye or triticale, etc. or their combination with corn silage and alfalfa haylage.