Authors : W.W. Zhang, Y.G. Zhang and Z. Liu
Abstract: The objective of this experiment was to determine the fermentation quality of wet Potato Pulp (PP) treated with different absorbents. The absorbents were three agricultural by-products, dry Rice Straw (RS), dry Corn Stovers (CS) and dry Bean straw with Pods (BP). Four different ingredient combinations were investigated: 100% PP (Control), 80% PP+20% RS (RSP), 80% PP+20% CS (CSP) and 80% PP+20% BP (BPP). The laboratory bags were kept in the room, then were opened on 0, 3, 7, 10 and 50 days after ensiling for fermentation quality and chemical analysis, respectively. There was 110.52 mL kg-1 silage effluent production in the control while the absorbent treatments had no effluent losses. The Dry Matter (DM) loss was higher in the control (21.22% DM) than all the absorbent treatments (RSP, CSP and BPP) and the differences were significant (p<0.05). For all silages, there was a fast and large reduction in pH from the 3rd day of ensiling to <4.2. After ensiling, the pH value in all silages attained <4.00. The absorbents inhibited the break down of silage protein and the ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) content of absorbents addition silage significantly (p<0.05) lower than the control after 50 days of ensiling. Compared with the control, only the treatment RSP resulted in higher (p<0.05) lactic acid concentration. The acetic acid content in the absorbent treatments were (p<0.05) lower than that of the control silage. All the absorbent silages had a higher quality Fleig point than the control silage (p<0.05). These results indicated that adding the absorbent to potato pulp silage could prevent the effluent losses and reduced the silage DM loss during the ensiling and improved the fermentation quality.
W.W. Zhang, Y.G. Zhang and Z. Liu, 2012. Effect of Different Absorbents on Fermentation Quality of Wet Potato Pulp. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 11: 4230-4235.