Microbial Co-occurrence Network and Fermentation Information of Natural Woody-Plant Silage Prepared With Grass and Crop By-Product in Southern Africa

Zhumei Du; Seishi Yamasaki; Tetsuji Oya; Damiao Nguluve; Denise Euridse; Benedito Tinga; Felicidade Macome; Yimin Cai

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.756209

Microbial Co-occurrence Network and Fermentation Information of Natural Woody-Plant Silage Prepared With Grass and Crop By-Product in Southern Africa

Front Microbiol. 2022 Mar 14:13:756209. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.756209. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zhumei Du^{1

2}, Seishi Yamasaki¹, Tetsuji Oya¹, Damiao Nguluve³, Denise Euridse³, Benedito Tinga³, Felicidade Macome³, Yimin Cai¹

Affiliations

¹ Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan.
² College of Grassland Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
³ Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique, Matola, Mozambique.

Abstract

To facilitate the use of woody plant (WP) as a natural biomass resource to address the shortage of feed for ruminants in the tropics, we use PacBio SMRT sequencing to explore the microbial co-occurrence network and silage fermentation of gliricidia and leucaena prepared with Napier grass (NG) and corn stover (CS) in Southern Africa. Based on dry matter, the crude protein contents of WP are as high as 25%. Compared with NG, the addition of CS speed up the dynamic succession of microorganisms in the silage fermentation process from Gram-negative bacteria to Gram-positive bacteria, and promoted Lactiplantibacillus plantarum to become the dominant community and enhanced the metabolic pathways of lactic acid and citric acid, thus improved the fermentation flavour and quality of WP silage. WP can be mixed with CS to make high-quality silage, which can alleviate the shortage of feed and promote local animal production.

Keywords: feed shortage; microbial co-occurrence network; natural biomass resource; silage fermentation; woody plant.