Promoting corn stover degradation via sequential processing of steam explosion and cellulase/lactic acid bacteria-assisted ensilage

To improve the utilization efficiency of corn stover , steam explosion pretreatment and cellulase/lactic acid bacteria-assisted ensilage storage were conducted in sequence, mainly focusing on morphological structure, lignocellulose fraction, cellulose accessibility and degradation profile. The results showed that there was a synergistic effect of steam explosion and ensilage storage, where hemicellulose of corn stover was partly degraded during steam explosion processing (70%) or ensilage storage (20–40%). Meanwhile, its morphological structure was apparently broken, increasing cellulose accessibility (2.44, 2.83, 4.08–4.33 mg/g), where enzyme YDL and inoculant QZB were the two most effective additives. Furthermore, rumen effective degradability of corn stover (39.25%, 48.33%, 52.57–54.07%) were increased along with greater rapid degradation fraction (0, 1.67%, 9.16–11.62%) and degradation rate of slow degradation fraction (0.020, 0.034, 0.039–0.048 h−1) . In conclusions, it is suggested that treating corn stover with steam explosion processing and ensilage storage is a feasible way to improve its utilization efficiency.