AUTHOR=Huang Rongzheng , Chen Yongcheng , Ma Chunhui , Chai Yuxin , Jia Shuan , Zhang Fanfan 

TITLE=Potential factors causing failure of whole plant nettle (Urtica cannabina) silages

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1113050

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2022.1113050

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>Nettle is kind of new feed resources and benefit for animal production. However, a few studies observed that quality of nettle silage was poor under naturally fermentation. Consider of microbial activity was the mainly factors for fermentation characteristics of silage.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Thus, the present study investigated the potential factors causing nettle silage failure through metabolome and bacterial community composition analyses during ensiling.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>During ensiling, the pH was &gt;6.22, and water-soluble carbohydrate and organic acid contents stabilized after 7 d. At the genus level, <italic>Enterococcus</italic>, <italic>Weissella</italic>, and <italic>Pediococcus</italic> were the dominant bacteria (relative abundance were 30.06–39.39, 17.29–23.34, and 3.13–7.22%, respectively), with stable trends, whereas <italic>Lactococcus</italic> and <italic>Enterobacter</italic> relative abundance decreased significantly over time (relative abundance were 5.68–13.96 and 3.86–24.1%, respectively). <italic>Lactobacillus</italic> relative abundance was &lt;1% during the entire ensiling period, and malic acid metabolic pathway was the most important pathway. <italic>Enterococcus</italic>, <italic>Pediococcus</italic>, and <italic>Weissella</italic> were negatively correlated with malic acid, with <italic>Lactobacillus</italic> displaying an opposite trend.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>The results suggested that <italic>Lactobacillus</italic> activity was the lowest among lactic acid bacteria (LAB) during ensiling, which is the main reason for nettle ensiling failure, and attributable to a low capacity to compete for fermentation substrates such as malic acid against other LAB during ensiling. Additionally, anti-bacteria activity of nettle probably inhibited Enterobacter activity during ensiling. Present study probably given a solution for improve nettle silage quality through addition with malic acid.</p></sec>