Texas A&M researchers compared three treatments on male-sterile sorghum silage, in both BMR and non-BMR hybrids: Silo Guard, a chemical preservative; a bacterial inoculant plus mold inhibitor; and an untreated control that received distilled water. After 90 days, Silo Guard silage had the highest 30-hour NDF digestibility (NDFD30) of the three.

The silage came from a West Texas dairy farm, the trial used a completely randomized block design, and treatments were applied by personnel blinded to product.

The 90-day result

NDFD30 averaged 68.9% for Silo Guard, 61.7% for the untreated control and 61.1% for the inoculant plus mold inhibitor. That is 7.2 points above the control and 7.8 points above the inoculant treatment. The gap showed in both hybrids: 74.6% vs. 67.8% for BMR, and 63.2% vs. 55.5% for non-BMR.

Why the sampling date matters

The overall treatment effect had a P value of 0.096. The effect that stood out was the interaction between treatment and ensiling period (P = 0.03). Silo Guard's 90-day silos were the ones that stood out, while the treatments were close together at 30 days.

If a silage sample is pulled soon after ensiling, it may not show where the forage ends up by feed-out. When you sample silage for formulation, it is worth knowing how long it had been ensiling.

Temperature and air stability

Over 30 days of ensiling, Silo Guard silage averaged 15.5 °C, against 16.1 °C for the control and 16.2 °C for the inoculant treatment. The 0.7 °C difference from the inoculant treatment was a tendency (P = 0.07), and Silo Guard ran lower on the daily readings from day 7 through day 30.

Once silos were opened, Silo Guard silage stayed stable for 32.0 hours of air exposure, compared with 27.9 hours for the inoculant-treated silage (P = 0.02 for the overall treatment effect). The untreated control fell in between at 31.0 hours. Heating at the face is something feeders manage every day, and this trial measured it directly.

Talk to us

How long after ensiling are you testing? We're happy to send the full data table by hybrid and ensiling period. To see how Silo Guard performs on your own forage, ask about a side-by-side evaluation.

Study by researchers at Texas A&M University and Texas A&M AgriLife; results are specific to the forage and conditions in the trial. Temperature and air-stability data: Duhatschek et al., J. Anim. Sci. 101 (Suppl. 3): 484–485. NDFD data: Texas A&M study materials. Silo Guard® is a registered trademark of International Stock Food Corp., Woodstock, GA.