Effect of pit and plastic bag methods and some additives on chemical composition of grass-legume mixture silages

Abstract

This study was conducted at the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, the experimental field of the University of Sulaimani, during the growing season of 2012 – 2013. The experiment used two methods of making silage (pit method and plastic/ bag method) by making 18 pits with 100×80×100 cm, and 18 plasticbags sized 22 litter. Each silos contained three different forage types: grasses include whole barley and oat; alfalfa as legume and mixture. Those material were treated with two additives of sugar and molasses;solutions at a rate of 1:10; additives were used to improve silage preservation.The factorial design with a complete randomized block design (CRBD) experiment with three replications were used to analysis this study.Themostimportantresults indicatedthat the highest carbohydrates, ash, crude fat, crude fiber and moisture contents of 15.299, 8.580, 2.966, 18.399, and 70.536 % respectively, were achieved by using plastic bags method. The result showed that the highest carbohydrate content of 16.623% was achieved by using plastic methodwith grasses. However, the highest crude protein content of 22.037% was achieved by using pits with plant mixture and sugar. The highest pH value of 5.527 was recorded by the interaction among pits, plant mixture, and molasses. The highest dry matter content of 36.65% of was recorded by the interaction among plastic, grasses and sugar.The maximum carbohydrates content of 15.693% was achieved by using grasses, while legumes gave the highest contents of ash, crude fat, crude protein and dry matter. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that the method of using plastic bags was significant than pits method, the pits method with a mixture of (grasses and legumes) withmolasses produced maximum crude fiber, moisture, crude fat, and dry matter contents.