Gas production of four tropical algae species in vitro

Abstract

Studies on identifying numerous algae species to study the digestibility of the rumen have yet to be widely reported, especially with the numerous algae from tropical oceans. This experimentation was created to assess the gas production of four tropical algae species from Kelapa beach, Tuban, East Java, in vitro. The study used a randomized block design with four treatments (four algae species: Laminaria sp., Padina australis, Eucheuma cottonii, and Gracilaria sp.) and four replicas. The variables kept included gas production (measurement at 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72 h, from an easily degraded fraction (a), from a potentially degraded fraction (b), rate of gas production of b fraction, and total fraction degraded and fermented (a+b fraction). Data was applied operating Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for the significantly different data, and DMRT was applied to compare the treatments’ means. Laminaria sp. resulted in the highest gas production at 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours of incubation time, highest total gas production, easily degraded fraction, potentially degraded fraction, and total fraction degraded and fermented than others, in difference with Gracilaria sp. resulted in the lowest of the parameters. It is supposed that the brown algae (Laminaria sp. and Padina australis) had more prospects of being degraded in the rumen than red algae (Eucheuma cottonii and Gracilaria sp.)