JIA-2018-09

2089 TIAN Xing-zhou et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2018, 17(9): 2082–2095 that anthocyanins have been used in ruminants because t hey a r e known t o p r even t bloating (Kitamura et al . 2004) and have strong antioxidant activity (Sivasankar et al . 2011). In this study, we found that PS did not affect DMI, DDM, RFV, and NE L in ruminants. The possible reason was that although PSS had a higher level of anthocyanins, resulting in negative palatability, it had relatively higher l eve l o f chemi ca l composition (especially CP) and s t r onge r DPPH scaveng i ng activity, which are known to improve animal nutrition and health. 4.2. Silage fermenta- tive quality and an- thocyanin stability DM and WSC content in plants are of great importance for silage (Wilkins 1982). In this study, we found that DM tended to increase during the entire ensilage period although it did not differ. Poss i b l y because the extravasate was lost from the plant material during storage ens i l age , t he r eby increasing DM level (Maeda et al . 2011). Conversely, a previous study showed that WSC was b r oken down by bacterial Table 4 Comparison of silage fermentative quality according to ensiling period of sticky corn stover silage (SSS) and anthocyanin-rich purple corn stover silage (PSS) (DM basis) Item 1) Type 2) Ensiling time (d) 3) Mean1 4) SEM P -value 5) 0 7 14 21 42 63 84 105 Silage Time S×T pH SSS 5.71 3.99 3.79 3.71 3.70 3.69 3.70 3.68 4.00 A 0.0891 0.0014 <0.0001 0.485 PSS 5.66 3.61 3.58 3.59 3.53 3.59 3.59 3.62 3.86 B 0.0677 Mean2 5.69 a 3.80 b 3.69 b 3.65 b 3.66 b 3.64 b 3.65 b 3.65 b SEM 0.121 0.131 0.0309 0.0621 0.103 0.0397 0.0318 0.0194 NH 3 -N (%TN) SSS 1.10 1.44 1.56 1.73 1.67 1.67 1.66 1.56 1.55 A 0.0616 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.281 PSS 1.02 1.16 1.23 1.34 1.40 1.44 1.35 1.43 1.29 B 0.0804 Mean2 1.06 d 1.30 c 1.39 bc 1.53 a 1.53 a 1.56 a 1.50 ab 1.49 ab SEM 0.0926 0.0473 0.0887 0.0392 0.0484 0.0601 0.0236 0.0626 LA (g kg –1 ) SSS 45.9 66.0 70.1 71.6 72.2 73.0 75.4 78.3 69.1 B 5.45 <0.0001 0.0127 0.712 PSS 62.9 126 134 137 129 134 137 131 124 A 18.8 Mean2 54.4 b 96.0 a 102 a 104 a 100 a 104 a 106 a 104 a SEM 2.04 15.2 17.7 11.7 8.87 12.3 22.5 10.2 AA (g kg –1 ) SSS 9.09 22.0 23.3 21.6 19.6 19.2 18.7 22.9 19.5 2.47 0.411 <0.0001 0.873 PSS 9.26 23.3 23.8 19.9 23.4 21.0 21.3 21.3 20.4 1.63 Mean2 9.17 b 22.7 a 23.6 a 20.7 a 21.5 a 20.1 a 20.0 a 22.1 a SEM 0.676 2.60 2.95 2.09 1.94 1.95 1.77 2.03 PA (g kg –1 ) SSS – 4.80 5.52 5.42 6.58 6.74 6.14 6.36 5.79 0.890 0.846 0.532 0.783 PSS – 5.74 5.00 4.39 6.29 5.58 6.31 6.59 5.70 0.907 Mean2 – 5.27 5.26 4.90 6.43 6.16 6.23 5.97 SEM – 1.02 1.35 0.242 0.468 1.25 0.715 0.661 BA (g kg –1 ) SSS – – – – – – – – – – – – – PSS – – – – – – – – – – Mean2 – – – – – – – – SEM – – – – – – – – 1) NH 3 -N, ammonia nitrogen; TN, total nitrogen ; LA, lactic acid; AA, acetic acid; PA, propionic acid; BA, butyric acid. 2) Mean2, values represent the means of 6 replicates ( n =6); SEM, standard error of the mean. 3)  Values represent the means of 3 replicates ( n =3). 4)  Mean1, values represent the means of 24 replicates ( n =24). 5) Silage, effect of silage; Time, effect of storage day; S×T, effect of silage and storage day interactions. Means with different lowercase letters within the same row are significantly different ( P <0.05); means with different uppercase letters within the same column are significantly different ( P <0.05). –, not detected.