The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the quality and nutritive value of marandugrass silages. It was evaluated the followings treatments: T1- forage without treatment (control); T2 - 10% of pelleted citric pulp (CiP); T3 - enzymatic bacterial additive (EBA) (SIL-ALL-C4 of Alltech) applied at 5 g/L of water/t of forage; T4 - Coarse chopped forage wilted for 4 hours under the sun. The grass was harvested with 60 days of regrowth (24% DM). The intake and digestibility evaluations were realized in 16 crossbred steers with 200 kg of BW, which received silage plus 1.0 kg of concentrate/animal/day. The EBA did not affect silage composition, but CiP addition and wilting increased the DM silage concentration from 24% (control) to 31 and 48%, respectively. The CiP decreased the NDF and ADF concentration in 12.0 and 4.0 percentage units, respectively. The CiP and wilting decreased the pH values (4.17 and 4.58) and N-NH3 concentration (6.78 and 7.99% TN) of the silages, respectively. Wilting resulted in higher animal intake (111.8 g/DM/LW0,75) compared to control or EBA treatments. Addition of CiP resulted in similar DM intake compared to other silages. The treatments did not affect nutrient digestibility, and the mean digestibility values for DM, CP, TCHO, NDF, ADF and TDN were 67.0, 65.4, 68.8, 63.0, 62.5, and 65.6%, respectively. Proteolysis was not reduced by EBA while CiP or wilting decreased this process, stimulating intake. Addition of CiP, wilting and EBA did not improve the nutritive value of marandugrass silage harvested with 24% DM.
citric pulp; digestibility; enzyme bacterial inoculant; intake
