Comprehensive Silage Quality Database

In this study, the database was built by collecting the datasets from previously published articles. In detail, literature was obtained through a number of steps, i.e., identification and screening, and then valid articles were inserted into an excel spreadsheet. During the identification process, the search engines, namely Google, Scopus, and Google Scholar, were used for searching the datasets of the previously published articles. The keywords used were lactic acid bacteria, silage quality, bacterial diversity, and fermentation.
The identification process was carried out based on the titles of the collected articles. In this stage, we put general criteria in the article that would be involved in the database. These criteria are as follows: (1) Article must be written in the English language; (2) Only published articles; (3) Collected article must contain a control treatment with at least one experiment of LAB addition among their treatments; and (4) The collected articles must contain at least one parameter on silage microbiome or at least one parameter on silage quality. Here, in this stage, we obtained 181 articles.
The process was continued by scanning the entire abstract of each of the collected articles to ensure that the article is valid to be used in this stage. At this stage, 54 articles were obtained. The screening process was done by reading carefully the entire content of each collected article to determine which one of the collected articles is valid to be inserted into the database. The literature obtained at this stage was 37 articles with 185 studies and 485 datasets. All valid articles were inserted into an excel spreadsheet. Information about articles used in the database is presented in Table 1.
While creating the excel spreadsheet, datasets were divided into main categories which are main and branched cells. In the main cells, we included information on authors, year of publication, treatments, studies, doses, and substrates used as raw materials of the experience. Information on observed parameters was inserted in the branched cells of the created excel spreadsheet. The observed parameters include the chemical composition of silage material (DM, dry matter content; OM, organic matter; CP, crude protein; NDF, neutral detergent fiber; ADF, acid detergent fiber; WSC, water-soluble carbohydrates; EE, ether extract; ASH, the ash content in the fresh material; DM recovery, cellulose and hemicellulose; and ADL, acid detergent lignin), silage quality (pH value; LA, lactic acid; AA, acetic acid; PA, propionic acid; BA, butyric acid; AS, aerobic stability; LAB, lactic acid bacteria; AB, aerobic bacteria; yeasts, yeasts and molds, molds, and the starch content), silage microbiome, and information on sequencing. All the data of the targeted parameters were inserted into the created excel sheet to be ready for evaluation.