Nutritional value and fermentability of sorghum silages grown in the Amazon biome

Abstract

In recent years, agricultural production systems have intensified, making it necessary to improve the food supplied to animals, where sorghum silage is one of the most commonly used roughages. The sorghum genotypes present significant differences in dry matter losses, fermentative profiles and nutritional values, allowing the identification of materials with high potential for producing high-quality silages that meet the dietary demands of ruminants and are recommended for use. Therefore, this work aimed to evaluate silages from 15 sorghum genotypes for different purposes to identify materials that could be recommended for silage production in the Amazon biome. The experiment was carried out in Sinop/MT to evaluate the fermentative characteristics and chemical composition of the sorghum silages. Fifteen sorghum genotypes, 15F30005, 15F30006, CMSXS 5027, 5030, 5043, 5045, 201934B008, CMSXS 7501, BRS 658, BRS 659, Volumax, BRS 511, BRS Ponta Negra, BRS 716 and AGRI-002E, were ensiled in experimental silos with six replications per treatment. For the content of NH₃-N, BRS 658 and BRS 659 had the lowest average, 29.9 g NH₃-N/kg total N. The highest average dry matter content was from BRS 658, BRS 659, AGRI-002E and BRS 716, at 295.0 g/kg. The highest average crude protein content of 78.1 g/kg dry matter (DM) was obtained from BRS658 and BRS 659. For lignin, BRS 659, Volumax, Ponta Negra, 15F30006, CMSXS 5027 and CMSXS 5030 had the lowest average value, 49.5 g/kg DM. All the genotypes evaluated presented characteristics suitable for ensiling. The materials with the highest nutritional value were the commercial varieties BRS 658, BRS 659 and Ponta Negra. The experimental varieties 15F30005, CMSXS 5027 and CMSXS 5030 demonstrated similar nutritional values to the commercial varieties, making them promising candidates for future release, commercialization and use in animal feed silage.