Abstract
Inaccurate prediction of silage intake is often the greatest source of error in ration formulation but improvements have been hindered by an inadequate description of the silage fermentation in advisory practice. Until recently, only pH and ammonia N have been routinely measured as indicators of silage fermentation characteristics. A new method, based on research in Finland (Moisio and Heikonen, 1989) has been developed and is now in use by SAC. This involves automated titration of juice squeezed from the silage to pH 2 (with HC1) followed by stepwise titration (with NaOH) to pH 12. Concentrations of juice constituents are predicted from the buffering capacities measured over segments of the titration curve (pH 2 to pH 12). Calibrations have been obtained empirically by the addition of known increments of standards to a range of silage juices. Proportions of variance (R2) of measurements made by reference methods accounted for by predictions from titrations for a validation set of 93 silages were 0.90, 0.78, 0.92, 0.82 and 0.82 for lactic acid, acetic+butyric acids (VFA), soluble N, sugar and ammonia N respectively.
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Schedule a callMore From: Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972)
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