Effect of Urea, Molasses and a Bacterial Inoculants on Chemical Composition and Dry Matter Degradability of Sunflower Silage

Whole plant sunflower and sunflower without head were ensiled in plastic containers using additives in a 2×2×2×2 factorial arrangement in a completely randomized design with three replicates. Additives were molasses, urea (at 4 and 0.5 percent wet basis respectively), and a bacterial inoculant (Agros 6gr/ton of forage as manufacture’s instruction). Compared with silages without head, ensiling sunflower as whole plant resulted in lower pH, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and ash versus higher concentrations of crude protein and ether extract (EE). No significant effect of seed was observed on lactic acid concentration and dry matter degradability (P<0.05). With the addition of molasses, the cell wall components and the EE concentrations reduced, but dry matter content increased. Highest degradability of dry matter was also observed in molasses-treated silages (average 58.04, P<0.007). With the addition of urea a significant increase was seen in CP content of either whole plant or headless silages (P<0.0001) with no effect on other fermentation characteristics. Bacterial inoculation of silages elevated the levels of lactic acid (2.81% DM) with more pronounced effect on headless than whole plant silages. Regardless of type of additives, butyric acid concentrations were ideally minimal (near to 2%) indicating least clostridial damage. The qualitative visual evaluation of the silage on the basis of scale of 1-20 for the smel, colour and structure of the silage and giving number to the mold damage on the basis of 1-10 placed all the treatment in an acceptable quality, although the mold damage was highest in silages without molasses. Results of this experiment indicated that better quality of silalges could be provided by adding molasses and ensiling whole plant sunflower. Improving quality of silages contained molasses might necesitate the additiion of a source of water-soluble carbohydrate at ensiling.