Pichia anomala yeast improves feed hygiene during storage of moist crimped barley grain under Swedish farm conditions

Preservation of moist crimped cereal grain is made feasible through fermentation by lactic acid bacteria. Climatic variations make it difficult to harvest at moisture contents (0.30–0.45 g/g) to support optimal fermentation under practical conditions. Therefore, the yeast, Pichia anomala J121, previously found to prevent mould spoilage and improve preservation of moist grain in malfunctioning airtight silos, was added to moist crimped cereal grain stored in large plastic tubes. Freshly harvested barley grain was crimped and inoculated with P. anomala (105 colony-forming units/g grain). Due to the local weather conditions, harvest was delayed and moisture content in the cereal grain had decreased to 0.16–0.18 g/g. P. anomala was inoculated into three batches of barley, each comprising 16 tonnes packed into large plastic tubes. Three additional sets of plastic tubes were packed with cereal grain without addition of P. anomala. The grain tubes were left closed for 5 months, after which feeding to cattle commenced. In both the P. anomala inoculated and the control barley, the population diversity of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) was very high over the duration of storage. However, the dominant LAB shifted over the course of storage to Pediococcus pentosaceus and Lactobacillus paracasei, in inoculated and control barley, respectively. The yeast population in the inoculated barley was totally dominated by P. anomala during the entire storage period. In the control grain, the yeast population was more diverse, displaying shifts in the dominant species during storage. Pichia burtonii was the dominant species at the last sampling occasion. In P. anomala inoculated barley, numbers of naturally occurring moulds were reduced by about two log units, and the number of Enterobacteriaceae was reduced to below detection.