YILDIZ, Cihat Atatürk Üniversitesi - Ziraat Fakültesi - Tarım Makinaları Bölümü, Turkey , ÖZTÜRK, İsmail Atatürk Üniversitesi - Ziraat Fakültesi - Tarım Makinaları Bölümü, Turkey , ERKMEN, Yücel Atatürk Üniversitesi - Ziraat Fakültesi - Tarım Makinaları Bölümü, Turkey

The Effects of Harvest Stage, Chopping Length and Compaction Pressure on Silage Quality of Sorghum-Sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense Staph.) Silage

28694

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of harvest stage, chopping length and compaction pressure on forage quality of sorghum-sudangrass silage. In this study, Grazer N2 variety hybrid sorghum-sudangrass was used as silage material. Sorghum-sudangrass has been harvested by silage machine both in the milk and dough stages and were chopped within 1 and 4 cm in size and stored in a silo in 60 liter plastic barrels in compression pressure values 1, 2 and 3 MPa. At the end of the fermentation process, chemical analyses of sorghum-sudangrass silage were done and silage quality classes were determined. The prolonged harvest time has increased dry matter and pH value of silage whereas decreased crude protein, ADF, NDF and lactic acid content (p 0.05). The increased chopping length has insignificant dry matter (p 0.05) and it has increased pH value in milk stage (p 0.05). Silages obtained at the end of the study were to be found very good quality class according to the Flieg scoring system. As a result of the study was concluded harvest to be making at dough stage, the material chopping length is 4 cm and compaction pressure is 1 MPa for the making of sorghum sudangrass silage.

137

Sorghum , sudangrass silage , Harvest stage , Chopping length , Pressure level , Silage feed quality

Journal Of Agricultural Faculty Of Atatürk University

143