ABSTRACT
Silage preparation is a nutritive and incontrovertibly effective method of green fodder preservation. It ensures sustained livestock production throughout the year, particularly during lean periods. Production of high-quality silage is influenced by various pre-ensiling; types of fodder crop, epiphytic microbiota, harvesting time, dry matter content, and post-ensiling factors; compaction in silos, water activity, and buffering capacity of ensiled mass, maintenance of anaerobic conditions. Under suboptimal ensiling conditions, spoilage bacterial and fungal microbes of genera Clostridia, Enterobacter, Bacilli, and Listeria compete with lactic acid bacteria for the substrate. This reeked silage with high pH is suitable for secondary deteriorating bacterial and fungal species. Oxygen regression due to rodents, birds, or insects damage worsens silage rotting by the exponential proliferation of aerobic spoilage microbiota. Resultant silage is foul-smelling with low energy and dry matter contents with reduced palatability, less intake, and severe livestock health issues. Additionally, rotting silage microbiota produces a concomitant spectrum of toxins; enterotoxins, aflatoxins, ochratoxins, trichothecenes, fumonisins, mycophenolic acids, and roquefortine C. This cocktail of mycotoxins has reverberations beyond reduced farm production, as these secondary metabolites carry over in milk and its products, consequently affecting humans. Various silage-spoiling bacterial and fungal microbiome and their distributions within the ensiled mass and toxin-producing potential are discussed. This chapter also delves into pre- and post-ensiled prevention strategies to avoid silage rotting.
