Evaluation of chemical composition of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) silage enriched with Jaggery, mineral mixture & whey.

Abstract

The present research “Enrichment of sorghum silage using jaggery and mineral mixture” was conducted at Livestock Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairy science, College of Agriculture, Latur during the year 2022-2023. Total twelve treatments were studied namely T0 - Control (CSH22SS), T1- 2% Jaggery + CSH22SS, T2 - 2% mineral mixture + CSH22SS, T3 - 2% whey + CSH22SS, T4 - Control (Dagdi Jowar), T5-2% Jaggery + Dagdi Jowar, T6 - 2% mineral mixture + Dagdi Jowar, T7 - 2% whey + Dagdi Jowar, T8 - Control (Phule Suchitra), T9 - 2% Jaggery + Phule Suchitra, T10 - 2% mineral mixture + Phule Suchitra, T11- 2% whey + Phule Suchitra respectively. The fodder crop were chaffed into small pieces preferably 2-4 cm length using a chaff cutter. The bags were packed in such a way that neither air enters into the bags nor the gas comes out from the bags. To improve the nutritional quality of ensiling materials (2%) Mineral mixture was evenly sprinkled and thoroughly mixed over the chopped fodders in all treatments. Jaggery (2%) was diluted with water in a 2:1 ratio for easy application. While, whey (2%) was added as an inoculant to improve the fermentation quality. The fermentation process was done upto 60 days and silage obtained was subjected to the physical and chemical analysis.The chemical composition of the silage samples collected from various treatment bags was examined and the highest dry matter content was observed in T10 (52.60%), wheareas the lowest content was observed in T6 (39.32%). similarly, treatments T6 (39.82%), T7 (52.5%). The mean crude protein content ranged approximately from 5.1% to 9.1%. The highest crude protein content was recorded in T10 (9.93%), followed by T2 (9.26%) and the lowest CP value (5.17%) was estimated in T4. Among all the treatments, T7 recorded the highest mean extract content (3.25%) followed by T6 and T11 (2.78%). Whereas, the lowest mean value was observed in T5 (1.55%) treatment. Whereas, T6 recorded the highest mean total ash content (9.38%) followed by T10 (8.50%) and T9 (8.45%) and lowest total ash content (6.95%) was observed in T4 treatment.