Ensiling forage garland (Chrysanthemum coronarium L.) at two stages of maturity and at different wilting levels

Garland (Chrysanthemum coronarium L.) is an annual spontaneous species of Mediterranean pastures usually grazed by animals and a weed in grain cereals. The tendency of garland to be conserved as silage has been studied in crops harvested at early bud (EB) and late flower (LF) stages. For each stage, the forage was ensiled in 2 l glass silos immediately after cutting or wilted in the field to different dry matter (DM) levels. Silos were stored in the dark at 25 °C for 120 days. The DM content (g kg−1 fresh matter (FM)) at ensiling ranged from 109 (direct-cut) to 332 for the EB forage and from 197 (direct-cut) to 425 for the LF forage. In the EB stage a 77 h field wilting time was required to reach the DM content of 332 g kg−1, while in the LF stage a similar DM content was reached after 27 h. The concentration of water soluble carbohydrates (WSC) in the forage before ensiling ranged from 29 to 69 and from 31 to 51 g kg−1 in the EB and LF stages, respectively. The high sugar substrate allowed lactic acid fermentation and a good conservation quality in both stages, without detectable butyric acid, even in direct cut silages. As the DM level increased, lactic acid production declined from 93 to 18 g kg−1 DM in EB silages and from 61 to 15 g kg−1 DM in LF silages. The pH increased from 3.98 to 5.19 and from 4.03 to 5.05, in the two stages, respectively. The highest ammonia nitrogen (NH3–N) value was 56 g kg−1 total N, the highest soluble N was 486 g kg−1 total N and the maximum DM fermentation loss was 26 g kg−1 DM. High residual WSC were found in all silages. No evident moulds were observed in any silage. The good results obtained in lab-scale silos would suggest that garland has a potential for large scale ensiling. However, the low DM content of herbage at cutting, the difficulties in wilting, and the problems generally related to low DM content silages, would suggest further investigation on farm scale silages.