Effect of steam explosion pretreatment on ensiling performance of dry corn stover

Ensiling is an important crop straw feed processing method. It can not only effectively improve the nutritional value of crop straws, but also increase the storage time. The corn stover (CS) annual production is about 260 million tons. This limits the operation time of ensiling and the scope of CS. In order to expand the available range of CS and reduce the unnecessary use of additives, the advantages of three straw feed processing methods of silage, microbial silage and steam explosion were studied. On these bases, the feasibility of improving dry CS ensiling performance by steam-explosion pretreatment was tested in this work. The results showed that the steam explosion pretreatment could degrade the hemicellulose in CS and increase the oligosaccharides and monosaccharides content in CS. The results also showed that higher pretreatment intensity could not only increase the soluble sugar content, but also the furfural content in the pretreated CS. Low intensity steam explosion pretreatment made the dry CS obt