Effect of different levels of sugar beet pulp on chemical composition,fermentational properties, in situ degradability and in vitro gas production of citrus pulp silage

The effect of different levels of sugar beet pulp (SBP) as a silage additive on chemical composition, fermentational properties, in situ degradability and in vitro gas production of citrus pulp silage (CPS) was investigated. In a completely randomized design the whole fresh citrus pulp was manually chopped and used as untreated or treated with 6, 12, or 18g SBP/kg fresh citrus pulp for ensiling. The results showed that increasing SBP significantly increased DM% and crude protein (CP %) of silages (P<0.05) but, NDF%, ADF%, ether extract (EE %) and ash% were not affected by treatments (P>0.05). Results showed that with increasing SBP, ammonia nitrogen and pH significantly increased among treatments (P<0.05). Data of Flieg point displayed that all treatments had good quality. Data of in situ degradability indicated that, soluble degradable fraction (a) was significantly higher in first and second treatment and non-soluble degradation fraction (b) was significantly higher in treatments with 12 and 18 g SBP (P<0.05). The fractional degradation rate (c) and effective degradability (ED) of silages were significantly higher in treatments with SBP (P<0.05). Potential degradability (a+b) of silages with increasing SBP of silages was not affected by different treatments (P<0.05). Potential gas production (b), fractional rate of gas production (c), metabolisable energy (ME) and organic matter digestibility (OMD) of silages significantly increased with increasing SBP (P<0.05). The net energy (NEl) and short chain fatty acids (SCFA) content of silages were not significantly different among treatments (P<0.05). This data suggest that the addition of SBP to CPS can improve the nutritional value of citrus pulp silage.