Abstract
The objectives were to elucidate the nutritional value and the ruminal degradability of whole crop silage prepared from Tachisuzuka as short panicle cultivar in comparison with that from Kusanohoshi as common cultivar of forage paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.). Both whole crop silages were prepared two times through two years, when the digestion trials were carried out with four sheep for the first year and three cows for second, respectively. The digestibility of crude protein, ether extracts and nitrogen free extracts was not different between two rice cultivars, but that of crude fiber and NDFom was greater in Tachisuzuka. Total digestible nutrients value for Tachisuzuka with sheep and cows was greater by 4.3 and 5.7 percentage units than that of Kusanohoshi, respectively. Ruminal effective degradability of dry matter and NDFom in stem plus leaf sheath of Tachisuzuka was greater than that of Kusanohoshi because of less lignin and silica content in the fraction of Tachisuzuka. These results indicated that the nutrient value of whole crop silage from Tachisuzuka is superior to that from Kusanohoshi.
