Silage yield and quality of hops (Humulus lupulus L.)

A hop contains significant amounts of polyphenols, crude protein, and crude ash, and it's also easy digestibility. It contributes to animal health, yield, and quality due to these traits. In addition, thanks to the phenolic compounds it contains, hops promote fermentation in silage and increase the palatability of the silage by giving it an aromatic taste. In this study, it was aimed to determine the silage yield and quality of hops grown in Bilecik province. Five different age groups (3, 5, 10, 15, and 20) of two types of hops (Brewers Gold and Aroma) were examined in the study. The boll of the harvested plant is used for brewing, while the rest is usually discarded. Then, harvested plants were chopped to size 2 cm, and as four replication ensiled in 2 kg plastic jars as sole and mixtures. The samples were taken fermentation at 25±2 °C during the 45 days. In this study, silage yield, dry matter ratio, pH value, fleig score, organic acids (lactic acid, acetic, oxalic, succinic and citric acid), water soluble carbohydrates, crude protein ratio, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, total alkaloid, condensed tannin, total phenolic, total flavonoid, and Free radical scavenging activity contents of silages were determined. The highest silage yield was determined at 1.73 t da-1 with in the 5 age group of Aroma variety. The crude protein ratio was range between 15.10-20.11%. The highest fleig score was determined in the age groups of 5 (96.64 and 92.27, respectively) and 20 (91.42 and 93.87, respectively) of both cultivars. The condensed tannin content of hops was ranged from 1.61% to 5.26%. The highest lactic acid content of 4.10% was determined in the 5 age group of the Brewers Gold variety while the lowest alkaloid content was determined in the 5 (3.29%) and 20 (3.31%) age groups of the Aroma variety. As a result, it has been determined that silages obtained from different varieties and ages of hops can be evaluated as roughage in terms of the traits examined. In addition, there were differences between the age groups and varieties of the plant in terms of yield and quality traits. Accordingly, although it has been determined that the silages of Brewers Gold and Aroma varieties belonging to the 5 age group exhibit superior performance than the other processes, the parts of both varieties in each age group can easily be considered as silage.