Nutritive value of elephant grass silage at different regrowth ages

The objective of this study was to evaluate the nutritive value and fermentative characteristics of elephant grass silage at different regrowth ages with rice meal as an additive. The design was in randomized blocks with five treatments (ages: 42, 60, 76, 91 and 105 days of regrowth) and four repetitions. Rice meal was used at 10% of the volume mass applied to elephant grass forage before ensiling. The dry matter (DM), soluble carbohydrates (SC), buffer capacity (BC), fermentation coefficient (FC); pH value, ammonia nitrogen content (N-NH3), ash, crude protein (CP), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber corrected for ash and protein (NDFap), neutral detergent-insoluble protein (NDIP) and acid (ADIP) ), indigestible neutral detergent fiber (iNDF), net lactation energy (NLE), in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDM), gas asymptotic volume (Vf) and fraction digestion rate rapidly (k1) and slowly (k2) digestible, latency (L) were analyzed. Except for NDIP and K2 rate, there was a significant linear effect (P<0,05) for the analyzed variables. It is recommended to ensile the elephant grass with rice meal (10%) until the age of 60 days because the silages produced have excellent nutritional value.