Effect of Inoculants and Sealing Delay on the Fermentation Quality of Early Harvested Wheat Forage

Abstract

Winter cereal silages can suffer from an inadequate fermentative path which can lead to aerobic instability. We evaluate the pre-ensiled conditions influencing the final fermentative quality and its aerobic stability. We studied the use of hetero/homofermentative inoculants on two early-harvest wheat samples (312 and 348 g/kg of dry matter—DM levels) undergoing three ensiling delays. The fermentative profiles were evaluated during the first ten d of ensiling, at 60 d and after 7 and 14 d of aerobic exposure. Aerobic stability was recorded during fourteen d after the silo opening. Significant (p < 0.05) differences of the final fermentative profile were related mainly to DM levels at harvest, while the use of the inoculant affected only the acetic acid significantly. Finally, the sealing delay did not significantly affect the silage fermentative profile. The overall aerobic stability was 59.2 ± 23.6 h, and cumulative temperatures were lower than 438 for seven d of aerobic exposure and higher than 1526 for 14 d. Although the homofermentative inoculants reduced the counts of yeasts in the final silage for the earlier harvested wheat, the other samples showed yeasts counts of ~4.9 Log10 colony-forming units/g, with the presence of spoilage fungi (Pichia and Geotricum).