Abstract
An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of an application of biostimulants, against the background of varied nitrogen regime, on the share of neutral detergent fraction (NDF), acid detergent fraction (ADF), and acid detergent lignin (ADL) in the crude fiber fraction of Italian ryegrass as well as its digestibility. A field experiment was arranged as a randomized subblock design (split-plot) with three replicates at the Siedlce Experimental Unit of the University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in Poland in 2013. The following factors were examined: type of biostimulant: Algex, Tytanit, Asahi SL and a control; nitrogen application rate: 0 (control); 120 and 180 kg·ha−1. There were confirmed positive effects resulting from an application of biostimulants in Italian ryegrass cultivation. There was confirmed the assumed hypothesis that an application of both natural and synthetic biostimulants will make it possible to improve the feeding value of grasses by reducing the fiber fraction. Particular attention should be paid to the biostimulant Algex whose application in Italian ryegrass cultivation produced the most beneficial response in terms of the share of NDF, ADF, and ADL fractions, which resulted in the greatest increase in the plant dry matter digestibility. Increasing nitrogen rates significantly reduced the quantity of analyzed fiber fractions, and increased grass digestibility.
Highlights
Reduction of mineral fertilization has become one of crucial elements of ecosystem biological balance preservation [1]
It has been an increasingly frequent practice to take into account in the quality assessment of feed for ruminants the feed content of neutral detergent fraction (NDF) and acid detergent fraction (ADF)
A high NDF level in feed, the fraction being the sum of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin, negatively affects its consumption whereas too high ADF level, the fraction being the sum of cellulose and lignin, reduces the total feed digestibility [27,28,29,34]
Summary
Reduction of mineral fertilization has become one of crucial elements of ecosystem biological balance preservation [1]. Biostimulants are multi-component products and they contain plant hormones or hormone-like substances, amino acids, betaines, peptides, proteins, sugars, aminopolysaccharides, lipids, vitamins, nucleotides, beneficial elements, phenolic compounds, sterols, etc. Many works have been published on the mechanism of activity of these compounds and a positive effect they have on yield and quality of various agricultural crops [8,9,10]. Biostimulants influence the effectiveness of nutrient utilization by crop plants by affecting the biochemical, morphological, and physiological processes and ion uptake [12,13,14,15]; they increase water accumulation capacity as well as antioxidant content and chlorophyll production in plants [16,17]. According to literature [25,26], to a large degree, biostimulant effectiveness is related to how well its choice meets agrotechnological needs as well as timing of application, application form, and rate
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