Effect of Different Growing Stages of Winter Cereal Crops on the Quality of Silage Materials and Silages

J. M. Heo, S. K. Lee, I. D. Lee, B. D. Lee and H. C. BaeDivision of Animal Science and ResourcesABSTRACTThis study was carried out to determine the effect of different growing stages of winter cereal crops onthe quality of silage materials and silages. Silages were made from the silage materials harvested at fourgrowing stages(boot, heading, flowering, and yellow ripe) of barley, rye, oat, and wheat. Approximately 1kg of silage materials harvested from each growing stage stored in vinyl bags with vacuum packingmethod and fermented at room temperature for 40 days.As the growing stages progressed, the moisture and crude protein contents of the silage materialsdecreased, and fiber contents(NDF, ADF and hemicellulose) increased. All the silage materials showedsignificantly higher contents of water soluble carbohydrate in the boot stages than in the flowering andyellow ripe stages. There was no tendency in acetic acid contents of silage materials cut at differentgrowing stages. The overall pH of silage materials were in the range of 5.91 6.01, and there was no～significant difference among growing stages. Buffering capacity of silage materials were in the range of26.23 29.47～ meq/100g DM, and showed a tendency to decline as the growing stages proceeded. Themoisture and crude protein contents of silages decreased significantly in all species as the growing stagesproceeded, and the fiber contents vice versa. As the growing stages proceeded, the pH of the silagestended to increase, and the acetic, butyric, and lactic acid contents tended to decrease. The bufferingcapacity of silages had a tendency to decrease as the growing stages of winter cereal crops proceeded.Therefore, these features described above should be taken into consideration in order to make silages fromwinter crops economically.(Keywords :Silage, Water soluble carbohydrate, pH, Buffering capacity, Organic acid)