Improvement of Fermentation Quality of Rice Straw Silage by Application of a Bacterial Inoculant and Glucose (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION In recent years, the livestock industry, especially herbivorous animal raising, has developed rapidly in China. The shortage of feedstuffs has become a limiting factor for the sustainable development of the livestock industry. In spite of a high production amounting to 192 million tons annually in China (Han et al., 2002), only a small proportion of rice straw is utilized as roughage due to its poor feeding value. The remainder is used as firewood, or directly burnt in the field so as to cause serious air pollution. Therefore, improving availability of rice straw has become a great concern. In the past, some physical, chemical and microbial treatments were tried to improve the feeding value of rice straw in China, but they were proven ineffective. However, in recent years, Japanese and Korean studies showed an improvement in feeding value of rice straw by ensiling (Cai, 2006; Kim et al., 2006).