​​Qualitative Analysis of Apple Pomace based Maize Silage for Animal Feeding

Background: Himachal Pradesh is one of the important apple producing state in India and a substantial quantity of apple fruit is utilized in processing for the preparation of juice and the left-over apple pomace remains a pollutant owing to the un-hygienic nature of apple pomace and its quick bio-degradability. Only a small fraction of apple pomace is traditionally being utilized in animal feeding due to the rapid spoilage of the wet pomace. The utilization of apple pomace in animal feeding remains a challenge and thus an attempt was made to ensile the maize through incorporation of apple pomace. Methods: The study was conducted to evaluate the nutritive value of maize silage incorporated with different levels of apple pomace and to study the effect of feeding silage on milk performance of crossbred cows. In the experiment apple pomace was incorporated in maize silage at 10, 20 and 30 per cent level. Result: On studying the proximate composition of different silage it was found that silage (T3) containing 80 per cent maize, 10 per cent apple pomace and 10 per cent mulberry leaves showed promising results. In T3 the proximate principles viz. dry matter, crude protein, crude fibre, ether extract, neutral detergent fibre acid detergent fibre, total ash, acid insoluble ash and pH were in ideal range and was at par with the silage formed by ensiling of sole maize crop. In the animal feeding trial, on feeding of apple pomace based maize silage 10.21 per cent higher milk yield was recorded with significantly higher milk fat, SNF and proteins. The net return on feeding of apple pomace based maize silage to crossbred cows was ₹ 149.00 which was higher than the control group (₹143.00 cow-1 day-1).