Abstract
Low-moisture grass silage was made in conventional tower silo with and without trampling during ensiling time. The two silages were compared of fermentation tempe-rature, dry matter loss and digestibility. And also, feeding value of the silage to growing dairy heifers were tested for 13 weeks. 1. Aftermath growth orchardgrass and ladino clover mixture was wilted by tedding from 30 to 45% of moisture content and ensiled by means of forage harvester in August and fed out during the following winter. 2. Two identical tower silos (diameter : 2.64m and height : 4. 75m) were used. One silo (Silo 1) containing 168.4kg of dry matter per cubic meter was tramped with 5 adults during the filling time and then sealed by vinyl water cap with 1, 100kg of water. The other silo (Silo 2) containing 123.5kg of dry matter per cubic meter was not tramped during the ensiling time and sealed by vinyl water cap with 2, 200kg of water. 3. Silage temperatures and pH are presented in Table 1. Silage temperatures in the well tramped silo were clearly lower than that of untramped silo. 4. Results of the digestibility trials are summarized in Table 2. The digestibility of well tramped silage was significantly higher than non tramped silage. It may be due to high fermentation temperatures. 5. Dry matter loss through top spoilage, spoilage during the feeding and gaseous loss by weighing in and weighing out method have been summarized in Table 3. Untramped silo lost greater amount of dry matter as visible spoilage and in gaseous form than tramped silo. High visible spoilage loss may be due to molding and refermentation during the feeding period. 6. Six Holstein dairy heifers (average 12 months old) were divided into two groups. The low moisture silage was fed ad libitum to both groups. And 0.5 and 1.5kg of concentrates per head daily were fed to group A and B. The results is presented in Table 4. Ad libitum feeding of low-moisture silage with 0.5kg of concentrates per head daily gave normal growth of dairy heifers.
