3. Results
The chemical analysis of silages has already been reported in Copani et al. (2014). At the end of the ruminal fermentationprocess, nearly all treatments were equal in terms of DM disappearance, except the pure SF silage which had a lower value(Table 1). The total gas production was greater for T and mixtures containing RC than for SF (P = 0.006). The inclusion of 25or 50% of SF or RC in the T silage did not affect total gas production compared to pure T silage. The CH4production per g ofDM tended to differ among treatments (P = 0.096), as slightly lower values were observed for pure SF than for pure T and RC.The CH4production per g of disappeared DM and the CO2:CH4ratio were not significantly different between treatments.When expressed relative to NDF, CH4 production was lowest for pure T and the highest for pure legumes, with in termediaryvalues for mixtures. When RC was present in mixtures with T, the production of CH4(g/NDF) decreased from 2.70 for pureRC to 1.88 for the mixture T–RC and to 1.82 for the mixture T–SF–RC, respectively. On this parameter, a negative quadraticeffect was detected between T and SF (P = 0.045) along with a trend between T and RC (P = 0.076, Table 1).The NH3content in the incubation medium differed between pure legumes and pure T (P = 0.011 and P = 0.001 for SF andRC, respectively; Table 1). The inclusion of 50% of SF in T maintained the production of NH3at the same level as pure T. In