Nutritional traits of silage produced from alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cultivated using conventional technology versus organic technology in support of higher dairy productions

Abstract

As consequence of increasing need of higher livestock productions, in conditions of assuring environmental sustainability, comparative tests of properties of forages obtained by application of conventional technologies compared with those obtained as result of organic practices, may be useful. Thus our trial covers issues concerning comparative study of nutritional traits, expresses through chemical composition indices, of silage obtained from alfalfa resulted from two types of cultivation technologies, conventional, and organic, respectively. The experiment was carried out in a familiar farm located near Huedin, County of Cluj, Romania. Higher contents of dry matter, acid detergent fibre, and ammonia are reported in silage obtained from alfalfa cultivated in organic technology, compared to silage obtained from alfalfa conventionally produced. The ammonia content of silage obtained from alfalfa cultivated using conventional technology, reported as % from dry matter, is the single chemical index where high diversity within individual values was identified. Correlations of similar intensities were identified between the indices of the chemical composition of the silage obtained from both, conventionally and organic, cultivated alfalfa. The alfalfa cultivated in organic system promotes higher amounts of crude protein, neutral detergent fibre, and total volatile fatty acids, in alfalfa silage.