Effects of different lactic acid bacteria groups and fibrolytic enzymes as additives on silage quality: A meta-analysis

Abstract A database was developed from 97 articles and was used to examine the effect of inoculant rate of obligate homofermentative and facultative heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria (OF-LAB) and obligate heterofermentative LAB (O-LAB) on silage quality using meta-analysis. This study also compared LAB inoculant groups with or without fibrolytic enzyme on the quality of legumes and forages based-silage. Results from regression equations showed that elevating levels of OF-LAB linearly reduced pH and increased lactic acid (LA) during ensiling but had no effect on aerobic stability. Conversely, O-LAB linearly increased aerobic stability. Compared to control group, LAB containing fibrolytic enzymes decreased pH by 12.15% and increased LA and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) by 58.94% and 12.23% respectively which is the highest than other inoculant groups. In conclusion, although all types of inoculants are effective to improve silage quality, response of plant materials to inoculants containing fibrolytic enzymes varied.