Effects of various epiphytic microbiota inoculation on the fermentation quality and microbial community dynamics during the ensiling of sterile napier grass

AIM To investigate epiphytic microbiota transformation of forages, their adaptation and contributions to fermentation quality of silage. METHODS AND RESULTS Gamma irradiated chopped napier grass were ensiled with distilled water (STR), extracted epiphytic microbiota of napier grass (NAP), sudan grass (SUD), whole crop corn (WCC) and forage sorghum (FS). Inoculating napier grass with WCC significantly increased lactic acid (LA) concentrations during the initial ensiling period followed by a decline after 30 days. Relative to other silages (except STR) inoculation with NAP resulted in lower LA and greater pH, ammonia-N and dry matter (DM) losses. Silage inoculated with FS and SUD maintained lower pH as well as higher (P <0.05) LA concentrations after 60 d of storage. During d 3 of ensilage, WCC, NAP and SUD inoculated silage were dominated by bacterial genera of Lactobacillus, while Lactococcus dominated the FS silage. Final silages were dominated by Lactobacillus in all treatment silages, however Enterobacter (16.3%) in NAP and Acetobacter (25.7%) in WCC silage were also prominent during the final ensiling. CONCLUSION The inoculation of epiphytic microbiota of forage sorghum and sudan grass positively influenced the microbial community and fermentability of sterile napier grass silage. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT This is the first time to investigate the effects of various epiphytic microbiota as silage inoculants which can be used as alternative source of environmental friendly and economically feasible silage additives.