Investigation of chemical composition, fermentation characteristics and gas production of tomato pomace ensiled with sugar beet pulp and dried citrus pulp

This experiment was conducted to investigate the of chemical composition, fermentation characteristics and gas production of tomato pomace ensiled with sugar beet pulp and dried citrus pulp, in a Completely Randomized Design. Treatments were: 1) tomato pomace silage (control), 2) control + 5% sugar beet pulp, 3) control + 10 % sugar beet pulp, 4) control + 5 % dried citrus pulp and 5) control + 10 % dried citrus pulp. The ensiling process was performed in two layer plastic bags.  The silos were opened after 3, 7, 21, and 45 of days. The results indicated that there were significant differences between treatments on dry matter (DM), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and Ash (P<0.05). However, crud protein (CP) content didn’t affected by adding sugar beet pulp and dried citrus pulp. Results showed that with increasing time after ensiling, Ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-N) concentration increased. In this study, using different levels of sugar beet pulp and dried citrus pulp significantly improved aerobic stability compared with control treatment (P<0.05). Treatments containing 10 % additives had higher pH in comparison to treatments containing 5 % additives. There were significant differences between treatments on potential and rate of gas production and other estimated parameters (SCFA, OMD and ME) in all ensiling times. The obtained results showed that there were significant differences between treatments on OM and DM digestibility (P<0.05). The highest microbial biomass (MB) and lowest gas yield were obtained by using of 10 % additive in all ensiling times. It seems that adding sugar beet pulp and dried citrus pulp can improve nutritional value of tomato pomace silage.