Straw constitutes a vast, valuable, and under utilised agricultural by-product, which has a great potential for utilisation as an animal feedstuff. However, due to the way in which it is constructed, the digestible sugars, cellulose and hemicelluloses, are tightly chemically bound by heavily lignified cell walls which provide the wheat plant stem with its strength and structure, but in doing so greatly inhibit the digestibility and nutritive value of the material to ruminant animals. Therefore, the utilisation of this resource as an animal feed can only be realised effectively, if the nutritional and digestibility values of the material can be improved by the innovation and successful application of an effective treatment method, be that physical, chemical or biological. Previously devised methods of upgrading the digestibility and nutritive value of forages, with the possible exception of urea treatment, have proven either insufficient, environmentally unsound, or economically infeasible to those concerned, particularly those in developing world. Therefore, there is a distinct need to develop techniques which can avoid these pitfalls and still yield the desired results in the context of animal nutrition. Previous research has indicated that members of the genus Pleurotus white rot fungi, have great potential for application in the biological upgrading of wheat straw. Therefore, the objective of this work was to investigate biological techniques, using 3 strains of Pleurotus fungi which may have the potential to be utilised in the biological upgrading of wheat straw.
Estimation of pasture herbage intake by beef cattle based on n-alkanes as markers
