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Acta Prataculturae Sinica ›› 2026, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (6): 108-121.DOI: 10.11686/cyxb2025300

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Effects of flavonoids from Taraxacum mongolicum and of Bacillus subtilis addition on fermentation quality, antioxidant activity, and aerobic stability of Avena sativa silage

Tao WANG(), Jing LI, Qiang LU, Wen-can KE, Shuai HUANG()   

  1. School of Forestry and Prataculturae,Ningxia University,Yinchuan 750021,China
  • Received:2025-07-17 Revised:2025-09-15 Online:2026-06-20 Published:2026-04-13
  • Contact: Shuai HUANG

Abstract:

This experiment aimed to investigate the effects of flavonoids from Taraxacum mongolicum (FT) and addition of Bacillus subtilis (BS) on the fermentation quality, antioxidant activity, aerobic stability, and microbial community structure of oat (Avena sativa) silage. The following treatments were established: 1) Control treatment (CK); 2) FT addition treatment (FT); 3) BS addition treatment (BS); 4) Combined FT and BS treatment (FT+BS). After 60 days of ensiling at room temperature, the fermentation quality, antioxidant activity, aerobic stability, and microbial community structure of the A. sativa silage were determined. It was found that: 1) Compared with the control treatment, the additive treatments exhibited significantly lower pH, propionic acid content, ammonia nitrogen/total nitrogen (NH3-N/TN) ratio, yeast count, neutral detergent fiber content, and dry matter loss (P<0.05), the pH and NH3-N/TN ratio values in the FT+BS treatment were significantly lower than those in the BS treatment (P<0.05), while the lactic acid (LA) content and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) counts in the FT+BS treatment were significantly higher than those in the CK treatment (P<0.05). Compared with the control treatment, the flavonoid content, total antioxidant capacity, and antioxidant enzyme activities were significantly higher in the FT and FT+BS treatments (P<0.05). The aerobic stability of the FT+BS treatment was significantly higher than that of the other three treatments (P<0.05). 2) The absolute abundance of Firmicutes was significantly higher in the BS and FT+BS treatments compared to the CK and FT treatments (P<0.05). The absolute abundance of Enterococcus was significantly higher in the FT treatment than in the BS and FT+BS treatments (P<0.05), while the absolute abundance of Levilactobacillus was significantly higher in the FT+BS treatments than in the FT and BS treatments (P<0.05). The total absolute abundance of LAB in all additive treatments was significantly higher than that in the fresh sample and CK treatments (P<0.05). In conclusion, both FT and BS contributed to improvement of the fermentation quality, antioxidant activity, and aerobic stability of A. sativa silage, while also promoting beneficial shifts in the microbial community structure for silage fermentation. Overall, the combined addition of FT and BS yielded the best improvement in A. sativa silage quality.

Key words: Bacillus subtilis, Avena sativa, total flavonoids from Taraxacum mongolicum, fermentation quality, antioxidant activity, microbial community