Laboratory silo type and inoculation effects on nutritional composition, fermentation, and bacterial and fungal communities of oat silage.

The objectives were to evaluate (1) the use of 2 types of experimental silos (S) to characterize whole-crop oat (Avena sativa L.) silage with or without addition of an inoculant (I), and (2) the effect of inoculation on the microbial community structure of oats ensiled using only plastic bucket silos (BKT). From each of 6 sections in a field, oats were harvested, treated (INO) or not (CON) with inoculant, packed into 19-L BKT or vacuum bags (BG), and ensiled for 217 d. The inoculant added contained Lactobacillus buchneri and Pediococcus pentosaceus (4 × 105 and 1 × 105 cfu/g of fresh oats, respectively). The experimental design was a complete randomized design replicated 6 times. Treatment design was the factorial combination of 2 S × 2 I. Some differences existed between BG versus BKT at silo opening (217 d), including a decreased CP (7.73 vs. 7.04 ± 0.247% of DM) and ethanol (1.93 vs. 1.55 ± 0.155) and increased lactic acid (4.28 vs. 3.65 ± 0.241), respectively. Also, WSC and mold counts were reduced in BG versus BKT for CON (1.78 vs. 2.70 ± 0.162% of DM and 0.8 vs. 2.82 ± 0.409 log cfu/fresh g) but not for INO (∼1.53 and 1.55), respectively. Application of INO increased DM recovery (96.1 vs. 92.9 ± 0.63%), aerobic stability (565 vs. 133 ± 29.2 h), acetic acid (2.38 vs. 1.22 ± 0.116% of DM), and reduced NDF (65.0 vs. 67.0 ± 0.57), ADF (36.7 vs. 38.1 ± 0.60), ethanol (0.63 vs. 2.85 ± 0.155), and yeast counts (1.10 vs. 4.13 ± 0.484 log cfu/fresh g) in INO versus CON, respectively. At d 0, no differences were found for S and I on the nutritional composition and background microbial counts. Leuconostocaceae (82.9 ± 4.27%) and Enterobacteriaceae (15.2 ± 3.52) were the predominant bacterial families and unidentified sequences were predominant for fungi. A higher relative abundance of the Davidiellaceae fungal family (34.3 vs. 19.6 ± 4.47) was observed in INO versus CON. At opening (217 d), INO had a lower relative abundance of Leuconostocaceae (42.3 vs. 95.8 ± 4.64) and higher Lactobacillaceae (57.4 vs. 3.9 ± 4.65) versus CON. Despite several differences were found between BKT and BG, both techniques can be comparable for characterizing effects of INO on the most basic measures used in silage evaluation. The use of inoculant improved oat silage quality partially by a shift in the bacterial community composition during ensiling, which mainly consisted of an increased relative abundance of Lactobacillaceae and reduction of Leuconostocaceae relative to CON.