Capacity of ensilage of Jatropha curcas L. cake to degrade forbol esters

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the capacity of the ensilage of Jatropha curcas L. expeller cake to reduce the phorbol esters and its effect on fermentative losses, by adding soluble carbohydrates or microbial inoculants. The design was completely randomized with four replications in a 3 × 2 factorial arrangement, with three sources of soluble carbohydrates (SC, control, 50 g sucrose/kg or 50 g crude glycerin/kg as fed) and two doses of microbial inoculants (MI, 0 or 5 × 105 ufc Lactobacillus plantarum + 3.33 × 105 ufc Propionibacterium per g as fed). Twenty-four mini-silos (982 cm3) of polyvinyl chloride were created and opened after 60 days of fermentation at room temperature. The pre-hydrated Jatropha curcas L. cake (282 g of water/kg) contained 0.424 mg of phorbol esters/g of dry matter. Ensiling reduced the phorbol esters in 47.4%, on average, regardless of the SC or MI. There was no interaction effect between SC and MI on effluent, gases or total dry matter losses. However, both losses were increased when SC were added, and it was higher with glycerin that than sucrose. The addition of MI reduced all fermentation losses. The process of ensiling, although partially to reduce the phorbol esters of pre-hydrated Jatropha curcas L. cake, is not indicated as a biodestoxification procedure.