Effect of limestone supplementation on ruminal degradability of fiber fractions for different kinds of silage

H M A Gaafar, N M Eweedah*, E M Abdel-Raouf* and W M Hagag*

Animal Production Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture,
Nadi El-Said Street, Dokki, Giza, Egypt
Gaafar356@hotmail.com
* Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelshiekh University, Egypt

Abstract

Four fresh crops, whole corn plant, corn stover, fodder corn (Darawa) and fodder sorghum were harvested, chopped and ground limestone was added to the different crops at the levels of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0% of wet weight and ensiled in plastic buckets with about 2 kg capacity for two months. Representative samples were taken for determination fiber fractions. The rate of ruminal degradation of fiber fractions were determined using Friesian cows fitted with rumen cannulae. 

Results indicated that the contents of fiber fractions tended to decrease with increasing level of limestone supplementation. The washing loss (zero time) of NDF and ADF decreased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation of more than 1%.  NDF and ADF disappearance at the incubation times from 6 to 72 hours increased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing level of limestone supplementation up to 1% and decreased significantly (P<0.05) afterwards. The rapid degradability fraction (a) of NDF and ADF decreased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation. While, the potential degradability fraction (b), degradability rate (c) and the outflow rate (k2) increased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation up to 1% and decreased afterwards.  

Keywords: fiber fractions, in situ disappearance, limestone, silage

Introduction

In Egypt, the total planted area of corn crop was about 1 million feddans, (feddan = 0.45 hectare) the area of corn crop used as a silage was 250 thousand feddans and 22.53 thousand feddans are cultivated with corn fodder (National Campaign of Corn Crop Rising 2007). The area of corn fodder should be cultivated with yellow corn hybrids  as the yield of digestible nutrients per feddan for corn fodder is very low compared with yellow corn used for silage making  and the two crops stay in the land nearly similar period (Bendary et al 2003). This change will add 0.78 million tons TDN and 99.91 thousand tons DCP to the feed resources in Egypt (Abou-Slim and Bendary 2005). 

Ensiling fresh corn stover material reduces field losses and may produce a more palatable feeding (Colenbrander et al 1971). Moreover, it may offer a significant reduction in cost and use of concentrate feed mixture for lactating cows (Bendary and Younis 1997) and lambs in Egypt (Ghanem et al 2000).

Since the acids produced eventually stop the fermentation, it was found through research that the addition of ground limestone would neutralize these acids. This makes fermentation last longer with more total acids being produced. The addition of one percent of pulverized limestone approximately doubles the lactic acid content of the resultant silage (Perry and Cecava 1995). They also, indicated that the addition of limestone corrects the normal calcium deficiency of corn silage.

Addition of limestone to a corn silage-concentrate diet increased plant cell wall digestibility by lactating dairy cows (Wheeler 1980). Ha et al (1983) indicated that lambs fed limestone supplementation increased (P<0.05) fiber digestibility. Froetschel et al (1991) reported that limestone additives increased fiber digestibility of wheat silage-based rations fed to Holstein heifers. Kinal and Pres (1995) reported that addition of limestone to the control diet increased digestibility of fiber. Wagner et al (2004) found that the limestone treatment had a significant effect on the fiber digestibility.

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of limestone supplementation on ruminal degradation of fiber fractions of whole corn plant, corn stover, fodder corn and fodder sorghum silages.

Materials and methods 

The current work was carried out at Sakha Animal Production Research Laboratories, belonging to Animal Production Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture in co-operation with Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University.

Four fresh cereal crops, whole corn plant, corn stover, fodder corn (Darawa) and fodder sorghum were used to evaluate the effect of limestone supplementation during making silage on ruminal degradation of fiber fractions. Whole corn plant was harvested at dough stage, corn stover was taken immediately after harvesting the ears, while, fodder corn and fodder sorghum were taken after 50 days from planting. Forage crops were chopped using harvester chopper machine to 1.5-2 cm of length. Ground limestone was added to the different crops at the levels of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0% of wet weight, ensiled in plastic bucket with about 2 kg of weight capacity, pressed by hand to exclude the air from the silos and sealed with paraffin wax. Treatments were run in triplicates (three of each). At the time of ensiling (zero time) and after ensiling for two months, representative samples were taken and dried in a forced air oven at 60 ^oC for 48 hours and ground.

Three multiparous Friesian cows were used for studying degradability of different silages. Ruminal degradability of fiber fractions was determined by in situ nylon bag technique (Mehrez and Ørskov 1977). The results of fiber fractions disappearance were fitted to the following exponential models of Ørskov and McDonald (1979) and the degradation was calculated by using the NAWAY computer programmer with the following exponential model:
 

Disappearance (g/kg NDF or ADF) = a + b x (1 – e^–kct)

Where:

a = rapidly soluble fraction.
b = slowly degradable fraction.
a + b = potential degradability.
c = fractional rate constant at which b will be degraded,
k is the estimated rate of out flow from the rumen and t is the time.

Fiber constituents, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) was determined according to Van Soest and Marcus (1964), while, acid detergent fiber (ADF) and acid detergent lignin (ADL) were determined according to Van Soest (1963).

The data were subjected to statistical analysis using general linear models procedure adapted by SPSS for windows (2008) for user’s guide with one-way ANOVA. Duncan test within program SPSS was done to determine the degree of significance between the means.

Results and discussion 

Fiber fractions

Fiber fractions of the different kinds of silages supplemented with limestone are presented in Table 1.

The contents of all fiber fractions (NDF, ADF and ADL) tended to decrease with increasing the level of limestone supplementation. These results are in accordance with those obtained by Hemken et al (1971) and Joanning et al (1981) who indicated that increasing grain content led to diluted the fiber components of corn crop. Valdez et al (1989) indicated that cell wall constituents increased with age till maturity of corn plant. Byers (1980) and Campos and Huber (1983) reported that fiber fractions contents of silage decreased with limestone supplementation.

NDF and ADF disappearance

The mean disappearance of NDF and ADF of different silages over incubation periods is shown in Table 2.

The washing loss (zero time) of NDF of different silages decreased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation beyond 1%.  NDF disappearance of different silages at the different incubation times from 6 to 72 hours increased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation up to 1% and decreased significantly afterwards. Disappearance of NDF and ADF for the different silages increased with increasing their contents, indicating a high positive correlation between them (r = 0.96 and 0.95, respectively). Limestone supplementation showed quadratic curvilinear relationship in the disappearance of NDF and ADF during the different incubation times as shown in figure 1 (a and b).

Figure 1a.  NDF disappearance at 48 hours	Figure 1b.  ADF disappearance at 48 hours

 These results are in accordance with those obtained by Ha et al (1983) who indicated that lambs fed 2% limestone significantly increased fiber digestibility. El Tayeb et al (1984) found that ruminal NDF and ADF digestion was higher with the 1.5 than the 0.6 and 3.0% limestone diets. Froetschel et al (1991) reported that limestone additives increased fiber digestibility of wheat silage based ration fed to Holstein heifers. Drackly et al (1985), Kinal and Pres (1995) and Wagner et al (2004) found that the limestone treatment had a significant effect on the fiber digestibility and improving fiber digestion with Ca that could be attributed to increased formation of fatty acid soaps in the rumen.

Degradation and outflow rate of NDF and ADF

The degradability fractions and outflow rates of NDF and ADF of different silages kind are presented in Table 3.

The rapid degradability fraction (a) decreased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation while, the potential degradability fraction (b) and , the effective NDF and ADF degradability at outflow rates 2%/hour increased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing the level of limestone supplementation up to 1% and decreased afterwards. While, degradability rate (c) increases significantly from 0.5% supplementation and does not change with further addition of limestone. Limestone supplementation showed quadratic curvilinear the potential degradability fraction (b) and outflow rates 2%/hour of NDF and ADF during the different incubation times as shown in figures 2 and 3 (a and b).

Figure 2a.  Potential degradability fraction (b) of NDF	Figure 2b.  Potential degradability fraction (b) of ADF

Figure 3a.  Effective degradabiltity of NDF at 2% outfelow rate	Figure 3b.  Effective degradabiltity of ADF at 2% outfelow rate

These results are in agreement with those obtained by Froetschel et al (1991), Kinal and Pres (1995), Resende et al (2003) and Wagner et al (2004).  
 

Conclusion 

• From these results it could be concluded that the addition of limestone at the level of 1% of wet weight at making of silage improved the fiber fractions disappearance.

References 

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Received 12 February 2010; Accepted 11 March 2010; Published 1 May 2010

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