Quality of Silage with Different Mixtures of Melon Biomass with Urea as an Additive

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the silage produced with different mixtures of melon biomass with urea used as an additive. It adopted a completely randomized design in a 5 × 2 factorial scheme with five replications. The first factor was made up of five mixtures on an as-fed basis (AF) of the melon, including plant (branch and leaf) and fruit (culled melon, after harvest), where the amount of fruit varied as follows: 0% fruit, 5% fruit, 10% fruit, 20% fruit, and 100% fruit. The second factor was represented by the use of urea in the silage as follows: 0% and 1.5% urea AF. The highest silage dry matter (DM) content (200 g/kg DM) was observed in the silage with 20% fruit. Regarding the crude protein, the highest content (69.8 g/kg DM) was found in the silage with the addition of urea. The highest loss through the gas (GAS) was observed in the silages with 0% and 100% fruit (0.6 and 1.13%), with no addition of urea. The silages made with melon biomass and the addition of 20% and 100% fruit showed differences regarding the fermentative pattern, chemical composition, and aerobic stability, thus being the most indicated mixtures for silage making.