**Author details**

*New Advances on Fermentation Processes*

to preserve TMR silages. A similar trial was performed by Ferraretto et al. [79] to test how the process influenced luminal *in vitro* starch digestibility. They used dry ground corn to adjust the humidity level of wet brewers' grain and observed an

Nishino and Hattori [80] evaluated two bacterium-based additives in wet brewer's grains stored as a TMR in laboratory silos with lucerne hay, cracked maize, sugar beet pulp, soya bean meal, and molasses. The additives tested were the homofermentative LAB, *L. casei*, and the heterofermentative LAB *L. buchneri*. This last one was responsible for controlling yeast growth and the homolactic one helped

General microbiology techniques have helped to understand the basic dynamic

of microbial communities, the diversity of species, the biochemical pathways involved at each phase of the fermentation process, and the metabolic functions of the main spoiling agents involved in degrading the nutritional quality of the silage. NGS helped observe microbial communities, and metabolic profiling does not cease to evolve. This fact directly influences the nutritional characteristics of the silage. In this chapter, the authors reviewed the main research activities that helped the agricultural industry understand silage, as it is known today and also pointed to experimental techniques that will continue to improve the understanding of metabolic pathways and functional aspects of the ensiling process. It is clear that these techniques will allow the scientific community to discover new inoculants that will combine our knowledge of silage fermentation, understand nutritional quality, improve rumen function, and contribute to better animal health. We are looking forward to the third generation of forage inoculants and seeing their positive

increase in digestibility of the starch from the combined feed.

in the fermentative profile of the ensiled TMR.

**11. Final comments**

impact.

**Acronyms and abbreviations**

AS aerobic stability CFU colony-forming units

LAB lactic acid bacteria

TMR total mixed ration

NGS next generation sequencing OTU operational taxonomic unit PCR polymerase chain reaction PCA principal component analysis

WSC water-soluble carbohydrate

DM dry matter

**168**

Pascal Drouin1 \*, Lucas J. Mari<sup>2</sup> and Renato J. Schmidt1

1 Lallemand Animal Nutrition, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States

2 Lallemand Animal Nutrition, Aparecida de Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

\*Address all correspondence to: pdrouin@lallemand.com

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
