Indigenous lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from five silage crops in the 1987
growing season: wheat, alfalfa, com, interseeded grain sorghum and soybeans, and forage
sorghum. All crops had post-harvest LAB counts that exceeded 5 x 105 colony-forming units/g.
There were no significant correlations between rate of fermentation during the first 7 d post-ensiling
and the indigenous LAB counts. However, corn and sorghum, which fermented rapidly,
had higher populations of homofermentative LAB, and the isolates showed higher rod to cocci
ratios compared to the other three crops. Most of the homofermentative rods isolated were
Lactobacillus plantarum, and most of those isolates had slow growth rates and narrow growth
temperature ranges. A variety of heterofermentative lactobacilli were isolated from all five
crops. Two unidentifiable Streptococcus species were isolated from wheat and alfalfa.
