Abstract
Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) is one of the regional unused bio-resources of Kagoshima that was treated by defibration, expanding and moistening (DEM), and its preservation was evaluated in Experiment 1. In addition, the DEM-treated bamboo (DEMB) was ensiled in a laboratory together with sweet potato shochu distillery byproduct (SDB) and wheat bran (WB), or with polished rice bran (PRB), to examine the fermentative quality and palatability of the silages in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively. When the DEMB was stored at room temperature under sealing or unsealing condition, mold occurred within a week, spreading over the surface of DEMB. Fermentative quality of six silages was observed. These include DEMB, DEMB with shochu distillery byproduct (DEMB+SDB), SDB with 5% wheat bran (DEMB+SDB+5WB), SDB with 10% wheat bran (DEMB+SDB+10WB), SDB with 5% polished rice bran (DEMB +SDB+5PRB) and SDB with 10% polished rice bran (DEMB+SDB+10PRB). All the silages except for DEMB showed a lower pH (<4.2) and the pH of the DEMB+SDB+10PRB was the lowest. Both the DEMB+SDB +10WB and DEMB+SDB+10PRB silages contained more than 2% of lactic acid, which were significantly higher than the others (P<0.05). There were little acetic, propionic or butyric acids in all silages. The DEMB+SDB+10PRB silage produced significantly lower NH3-N/TN than the others (P<0.05). The V-SCORE, indicative of good quality silage, got 100 points in the DEMB+SDB +10PRB, which was significantly higher than the others (P<0.05). Goats preferred the DEMB+SDB+10PRB silage to others, followed by DEMB+SDB+10WB, DEMB+SDB, DEMB+SDB+5WB, DEMB +SDB+5PRB, and DEMB. These results indicated that the more polished rice bran or wheat bran present, the more palatable the silages.
In conclusion, it is suggested that ensiling DEMB with substrates (SDB and WB or PRB) improves preservation, fermentative quality and palatability. In particular, the DEMB +SDB+10PRB showed excellent fermentative quality and palatability. Thus, DEMB silage is considered to be one of the most promising self-sufficient feeds for ruminants.
