Beneficial effect of on rumen digestion and fermentation.

As a member of photosynthetic bacteria, , which has extraordinary metabolic versatility, has been applied as one of potential probiotics in feed industry. To explore whether can increase rumen microbial viability and thus improve microbial fermentation, a 2×5 factorial experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of at dose rates of 0, 1.3, 2.6, 3.9, 5.2×10 cfu/ml on ruminal fermentation of two representative total mixed rations (HY, a ration for high-yield (>32 kg/d) lactating cows; LY, a ration for low-yield (<25 kg/d) lactating cows). After a 48 h rumen incubation, both rations resulted in different fermentation characteristics. The HY in comparison with LY group presented greater dry matter disappearance (IVDMD), cumulative gas production (GP) and total volatile fatty acids (VFA, <0.01). Increasing addition linearly increased IVDMD (<0.01) and GP (<0.05), and the IVDMD increment in response to addition was greater in LY than HY group (6.4% vs 1.4%). Meanwhile, increasing addition also linearly enhanced microbial protein synthesis and increased total VFA production (<0.01), especially in LY group (up to 21.5% and 24.5% respectively). Unchanged acetate and declined propionate in molar percentage were observed in response to the addition. Furthermore, increasing addition altered fermentation gas composition in which molar O proportion in headspace of fermentation system was linearly reduced by 46.1% in LY and 32.9% in HY group, respectively (<0.01), and methane production in both ration groups was enhanced by 1.9-4.1% (=0.02). In summary, the addition exhibited high potential for promoting the growth of rumen microorganism and enhancing microbial fermentation towards non-glucogenic energy supply by maintaining an anaerobic environment to microbe equilibrium.