Digestibility of silages in relation to their hydroxycinnamic acid content and lignin composition.

Background: The effectiveness of the analysis of cell wall-bound hydroxycinnamic acids and the composition of lignin to evaluate the in vivo digestibility of a silage collection with unknown botanical composition was evaluated.

Results: Syringyl units content and total etherified phenols showed the highest correlation coefficients with in vivo dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) (r = - 0.792 and r = - 0.