Although with potential to adapt in many regions of Brazil, the triticale, a grass that produces grain and forage, has been used only in the South of the country. The objective of this work was to study the nutritive value of the triticale forage as well as the fermentation parameters and quality of its silage when it is grown in Southeast Region and cut at six different ages. The experiment was carried (07/07/95) out at Guarani (Minas Gerais State, Brazil). Cutting ages studied were 73, 80, 87, 94, 101 and 108 days after sowing, using a casual design with four replications. There was an increase of 0.46 and a decrease of 0.09 percent units on dry matter (DM) and crude protein (CP) percentages, respectively, for each additional day in the cutting age. The highest values of DM were those obtained by plants cut between 87 and 101 days. Quadratic relationship was observed between silage pH values and cutting ages, where pH values varied between 3.7 and 5.5, and the lowest acetic acid concentrations, between 1,93 and 3,60% of the DM. Silage from plants cut after 73 days of age presented 0,97% of lactic acid in the DM. The highest (P<0,05) concentration of lactic acid was observed in silage produced from the plants cut at 94 growth days (12.05% of the DM). The in situ ruminal degradation parameters of fresh forage ranged from 74.6 to 89.5% (potential degradability), from 2.8 to 3.8%/h (degradation rate), and from 42.0 to 51.0% (effective degradability under 5%/h of passage rate). Silage obtained from plants cut at 87, 94 and 101 growth days presented better nutritional quality.
Chemical composition; ruminal degradability; growing stage; roughage; ensiling characteristics; ruminant; triticosecale
