SUGAR CANE ENSILED WITH SALT OR UREA

Abstract

Sugar cane silage is widely used in livestock production. Nevertheless, it presents a drawback which is alcoholic fermentation caused by yeasts and which can reduce its nutritional value. In this sense, the aim of this work was to evaluate the use of either doses of salt or urea in the ensiling of sugar cane with the objective of producing silages of better quality. For this purpose, an experiment consisted of completely randomized design with seven treatments and three replications was performed. The treatments consisted of the ensiling of sugar cane without the use of additives (control) and ensiling utilizing 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% of either salt or urea. Sugar cane was ensiled with 31.8% of DM in experimental PVC silos, which remained closed for 202 days. After this period, the silos were opened and a part of the central silage of each silo was utilized for evaluation of potential of hydrogen (pH) and of the percentages of dry matter (DM), for crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), lignin and hemicellulose. By utilizing the weights of the silos, the production of effluents was also computed. The data were submitted to the analysis of variance and the means compared by the Skott-Knott test at 5% de significance. The percentage of DM (29.5%) and lignin (9.9%) as well as the effluent production (43.8 kg/t of natural matter) were not influenced (P>0.05) by the treatments. Increased pH values (P<0.05) were found in the silages buffered with urea, which presented smaller percentages of NDF and hemicellulose (P<0.05). The greatest value of CP (18.5%) was found in the silage buffered with 1.5% of urea. Use of 1.5% of urea in the ensiling of sugar cane provided parameters indicating a silage of better quality.