Quality of Chopped and Ground Sweet Potato during the Production of Silage Feed for Pigs

Resumo

The size of the particles is one of the properties that have more influence in the quality of food for monogastric animals. The present work was carried out with the objective of evaluating the quality of the chopped and ground sweet potato during the production of silage feed for pigs in the plant “Héctor Molina", and to check if both characteristics fulfill the demands of the particle size recommended for this kind of food. To demonstrate if the particle size that is obtained coincides to that proposed for the chopping machine (40 ±7 mm)and for the hammer mill(4 ± 2 mm), the sweet potato is characterized physical and mechanically and two experiments are designed that use sweet potato samples of the same lot and in different schedules. The fractional sweet potato is measured with a vernier caliper and a sieve disperser-shaker is used for the finely milled one. A totally randomized design was utilized and Duncan Test for P <0,05 was applied in the necessary cases. For the analysis of the data, the statistical package Infostat version 2012 was used. It was determined that the sweet potato presents physical-mechanical characteristics in correspondence with the agroindustrial process and that the quality of the chopped and the ground sweet potato, respond to the proposed technology. It was also proved that the average value of the particle size was of 36,06 mm for the chopper apparatus and that 100% of the total mass of sweet potato fulfills the proposed particle size (4±2 mm).