The effects of different chopping lengths and compressing pressures on corn silage quality at two stage of maturity

This study was conducted to determine effects of different harvesting period, chopping length and compression pressure on corn silage quality. For this purpose corn, which was at 1/4 and 1/2 milk line maturity period, was harvested by single row forager and chopped at18 and 22 mm sizes. Harvested corn was ensiled in 2 liter PVC tubes at 1 and 2 MPa pressure for fermentation. The physical and chemical analysis was performed after the ninety-day fermentation process and silage quality was determined. The pH, dry matter (DM), crude ash (CA), crude fat (CF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and metabolic energy (ME) values were %3.83-3.88, 31.94-33.98, 4.82-5.32, 2.94-2.43, 37.89-43.76, 24.09-27.04 and 2.32-2.20 Mcal kg-1 respectively with progressing of harvesting period (p<0.01). Flieg Scores were also increased from 115.74 to 117.62 depending of harvesting period (p<0.05). pH, crude fat and crude protein level values were changed respectively (3.84-3.87), (2.62-2.75) and (7.60-7.77) with increasing of compressing pressure (p<0.01). Lignin was increased from 3.28 to 3.48 (p<0.05) by increasing the chopping size. The Flieg score of all silages was 100 point Flieg Score. It was concluded that corn harvested at 1/4 or 1/2 milk line maturity can be chopped at 17-20 mm size and can be compressed with 1 MPa for well quality silage