Let's keep talking about silage

The main objective of the application of the silage technique is to provide ruminants with their food requirements, storing them in times of abundance and supplying them in times of scarcity, thus preserving the quality and acceptability of the material used to ensure that they last for as long as needed, therefore the fermentation process is of vital importance, it depends on a controlled fermentation and the bromatological quality of the green fodder in the silo, in addition to various factors of special care.

To ensure the conservation of the fodder that is stored in the silos, it is important that lactic acid bacteria that consume soluble carbohydrates containing plant species proliferate, as the lactic bacteria work, the pH of the product will decrease, which will inhibit some pathogenic microorganisms that stimulate the decomposition of the material, generating its rot.

Although the bacteria must proliferate naturally from the areas of the rhizosphere close to the base of the plants when the forage material is harvested, commercial alternatives for the inoculation of such bacteria have been implemented to ensure increasing the presence of such bacteria that helps to accelerate the fermentation process, however, these commercial additives can increase the silage processing costs, which has led to the use of natural substances found in livestock production units that provide the necessary microorganisms for the fermentation process.

In accordance with the above, it can be mentioned that in the production units a variety of products derived from agricultural activity are generated, for example, from milk production, whey containing lactic acid bacteria can be obtained and it can be a natural inoculant that promotes fermentation and lactic acid production, likewise in some production units worm cultures are established from which leachates of the solid mass are obtained that according to Sources (1997), these substances, in addition to containing adequate levels of nutrients, have a high microbial load that could favor the silage fermentation process.

Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the impact that these products or substances may have on the fermentation process and on the quality of the final product, taking into account that there are some organoleptic variables that could be altered with the indiscriminate use of some substances. For this reason, the effect of inoculants such as whey and worm leachate on some variables that guarantee the proper silage fermentation process can be studied.

In conclusion, with everything we have discussed so far about the silage process, we can say that it is an economic alternative especially in the tropics where there is a wide variety of forages and from which large amounts of biomass can be stored for the most critical periods of the farm and the number of animals per hectare is not affected. As for the silage process, it should be noted that soluble carbohydrates and lactic acid-producing bacteria play a fundamental role for a fast and effective fermentation where the presence of any pathogenic agent that may negatively affect the ensiled plant material decreases.

Also this type of alternatives allows to carry out an adequate management of the pastures both those destined for grazing, those of cutting and species of forage legumes improving in this way the profitability and efficiency of the livestock farms, in addition a natural, ecological and more economical food is produced than the concentrates.