Preparing for a challenging forage season: Maximizing energy from variable forages

Depending on the region and growing conditions, this year’s corn silage may show greater variability in starch content, fiber concentration and digestibility. Grass silage and haylage quality may also vary, making forage analysis and ration monitoring particularly important.

As forage quality becomes less predictable, producers and nutritionists face an important question: how can they make the best use of available forages while maintaining animal performance and rumen stability?

Understanding the nutritional challenge

In forage-based ruminant diets, energy supply depends largely on two key nutritional fractions: digestible fiber and starch.

Digestible fiber, expressed as neutral detergent fiber (NDF), is fermented by rumen microorganisms into volatile fatty acids, which provide a major source of energy to the animal. Starch contributes additional energy through fermentation and digestion further along the digestive tract. Together, these fractions strongly influence the amount of energy available from the ration.

When forage quality declines, both energy sources may be compromised simultaneously. Lower NDF digestibility reduces energy release from grass and corn silages, while lower starch concentrations or reduced starch degradability further lower the energy value of the corn silage.

To compensate for these losses, nutritionists may increase concentrate inclusion or add cereal grains such as wheat or barley. While effective at supplying energy, they can also create new challenges. Rapidly fermentable starch sources may increase the risk of rumen acidosis, impair fiber digestion, and ultimately lower feed efficiency.

The challenge is therefore twofold: maximizing the energy extraction from available feed ingredients while maintaining rumen stability. Efficient nutrient utilization and rumen fermentation are essential to ensure that every kilogram of forage and concentrate contributes as effectively as possible to animal performance.

Supporting forage value under challenging conditions

As forage quality becomes more variable, nutritional strategies increasingly focus on maximizing nutrient availability from the ration while maintaining a stable rumen environment. These approaches can help maximize the value of available feed ingredients while improving nutrient recovery under challenging feeding conditions.

One such approach is Mervit Energy Digest , a nutritional solution developed to support digestibility, rumen stability and feed efficiency. It combines fermentation extracts derived from selected bacteria and fungi with a functional blend of buffering components and Vitanox. These fermentation extracts provide complementary cellulase-, amylase- and protease-type activities that support the utilization of fiber, starch, and protein fractions within the ration.

Cellulase activity supports fiber degradation and the release of energy from the NDF fraction. Amylase activity contributes to starch breakdown, while protease activity supports protein degradation and improves access to starch encapsulated within the protein matrix surrounding corn starch granules.

In addition to their direct effects on feed components, the fermentation extracts contain metabolites that support the activity and efficiency of rumen microorganisms. Together, these mechanisms contribute to more efficient rumen fermentation and improved nutrient recovery.

The buffering components help maintain favorable rumen and intestinal conditions, making Mervit Energy Digest particularly relevant when higher concentrate inclusion is required to compensate for lower energy supply from forage.

Where can Mervit Energy Digest deliver value?

Mervit Energy Digest may be particularly valuable for:

• Fiber-rich diets based on grass silage, haylage, hay, or straw, where NDF digestibility is a key driver of energy supply.
• Mixed forage systems combining corn silage and grass silage, where efficient nutrient utilization across different forage sources is essential.
• Corn silage-based diets, particularly when variable growing conditions, harvest timing, kernel maturity, low grain content, reduced starch degradability or lower NDF digestibility limit the silage’s energy value.
• High-concentrate rations, where nutrient utilization and rumen support help maximize feed efficiency.

Making every kilogram count

Variable forage quality is becoming an increasingly important reality for ruminant producers. As nutrient composition and digestibility become less predictable, recovering as much value as possible from both forage and concentrates is critical to maintaining animal performance and feed efficiency.

By supporting fiber and starch digestion while helping maintain rumen stability, Mervit Energy Digest can offer nutritionists an additional tool to improve ration efficiency and capture more value from every kilogram of feed.

Turning data into practical recommendations

Forage variability makes reliable insights essential. EvalueMate helps assess forage and ration quality, supporting more informed nutritional decisions.

Discover how Nuscience can help you manage forage variability with data-driven insights and targeted solutions.