Four sorghums of high size, moist and sugary stem, and three sorghums of small size, dry and sugarless stem and without sugar were used in order to determine the dry matter, crude protein (CP), amoniacal nitrogen, pH and alcohol soluble carbohydrates values. The CMSXS156, a small size sorghum showed the highest value of dry matter (33.6%) on 28 days of ensilage. The low size genotypes had an average 8.8% of CP and the high size 5%, probably due to the higher leaf and panicle proportions in small size sorghums. The average pH of the silages on 56th day of fermentation was 3.6 with a range of 3.5 to 3.8, and the mean of ammonia nitrogen was 5.3% showing that the silages had a suitable fermentative process. The mean value of alcohol soluble carbohydrates was 9.7% ranging from 13.2 to 16.5% for high and from 2.2 to 4.0% for small size genotypes.
Silage; sorghum; soluble carbohydrates; dry matter; crude protein
