The effect of stage of maturity and endosperm type on the in situ dry matter degradability of fermented whole crop wheat silage

Abstract

Whole crop wheat (WCW) silage is potentially an important complementary forage to grass silage grown in the UK and recent studies suggest that although partial replacement of grass silage with either urea treated or fermented WCW increases forage intakes, responses in terms of milk yield and composition are poor. For urea treated WCW this has been attributed to the fact that mature intact grains are poorly digested in the rumen. (Abdulla et al. (1996). However, the rumen degradation characteristics of fermented WCW are unclear. The objective of this experiment was to investigate the effect of crop maturity (Mat) and endosperm type (Endo) on the in situ dry matter (DM) degradability characteristics of fermented WCW silage.