Enumeration of lactic acid bacteria on grass and the effects on silage fermentation of added bacteria

TL;DRAbstract

Initial studies on the methodology of enumerating lactic\nacid bacteria (LAB) on grass and silage indicated that (a)\nvarying the homogenisation time in a stomacher from 1 to 7\nminutes did not effect LAB numbers, (b) MRS and Rogosa\nmedia gave similar LAB counts in silage and (c) anaerobic\nincubation of plates led to higher counts of LAB from\nsilage compared to micro-aerophi1ic incubation, but\nsimilar counts from grass. A survey of LAB numbers on\ngrass grown for silage showed pre- and post- harvest values\nof 3.1 x 105 colony forming units (CFU)/g (range 1.40 x 104\nCFU/g to 1.3 x 107 CFU/g.) and 3.3 x 105 CFU/g (range 1.6 x\n104 CFU/g to 5.9 x 10° CFU/g) respectively. The numbers\nrecorded were not related to grass dry matter or water\nsoluble carbohydrate (WSC) content or to specific weather\nconditions pre- harvest. From a random selection of\ncolonies, lactobacilli accounted for 64*, leuconostoc\n25*, and streptococci 7* - of these 54* were identified as\nhomofermentative and

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