Development of an enrichment culture growing at low temperature used for ensiling rice straw

To speed up the conversion of rice straw into feeds in a low-temperature region, a start culture used for ensiling rice straw at low temperature was selected by continuous enrichment cultivation. During the selection, the microbial source for enrichment was rice straw and soil from two places in Northeast China. Lab-scale rice straw fermentation at 10 degrees C verified, compared with the commercial inocculant, that the selected start culture lowered the pH of the fermented rice straw more rapidly and produced more lactic acid. The results from denatured gradient gel eletrophoresis showed that the selected start culture could colonize into the rice straw fermentation system. To analyze the composition of the culture, a 16S clone library was constructed. Sequencing results showed that the culture mainly consisted of two bacterial species. One (A) belonged to Lactobacillus and another (B) belonged to Leuconostoc. To make clear the roles of composition microbes in the fermented system, quantitative PCR was used. For species A, the DNA mass increased continuously until sixteen days of the fermentation, which occupied 65%. For species B, the DNA mass amounted to 5.5% at six days of the fermentation, which was the maximum relative value during the fermentation. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first report on ensiling rice straw with a selected starter at low temperature and investigation of the fermented characteristics.