Abstract
The use of ligninase enzyme produced from the fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium to delignify and improve the digestibility of barley straw was examined. Ligninase treatments were applied in a 4 × 4 × 4 factorial design, using level of enzyme, time and treatment conditions (with or without veratryl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide or both) as main effects. Samples of the same milled straw were also treated for the same durations with two levels of sodium hydroxide. The in-vitro organic matter digestibility (OMD) of untreated and NaOH-treated straws (24 h, low and high levels) were 304, 513 and 661 g/kg OM. Analysis of variance of the data showed that levels of lignin were reduced ( P < 0·01) from 116 (treated control) to 105 g/kg OM with both medium and high levels of ligninase. However, it was not possible to detect any positive significant difference in OMD between ligninase-treated and untreated samples, but there was much variation. The catalytic performance of the enzyme might be sub-optimal under the conditions described in this experiment.
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