Milled legume grain as urease source for the ammonization of elephant grass hay

Leonardo Fiusa De Morais,João Carlos De Carvalho Almeida,Bárbara Maria Gomes De Melo,Mirton José Frota Morenz,Delci De Deus Nepomuceno,Rafaela Scalise Xavier De Freitas

doi:10.1590/s0100-204x2017001200016

Leonardo Fiusa De Morais, João Carlos De Carvalho Almeida + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s0100-204x2017001200016

Copy DOI

Abstract

Abstract: The objective of this work was to evaluate the use of soybean (Glycine max), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), and jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis) as urease sources for elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum) hay ammoniated with urea. The experimental design was completely randomized in a double factorial arrangement with one additional treatment: 4 urease source levels x 3 urease sources + 1 control. Chemical-bromatological analyses and carbohydrate fractionation were performed in the hay, and cumulative gas production in vitro was determined. There were interactions between urease level and source for neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber, in which 1 and 2% jack bean lowered acid detergent fiber values, and 2% jack bean and 3% soybean reduced lignin content. The addition of milled legume grains reduces fiber components and increases non protein nitrogen content in elephant grass hay ammoniated with urea. Adding 4% milled soybean increases gas production in the soluble fraction.

Highlights

Ammonization of low-quality forage with urea is cheap and accessible for farmers (Vadiveloo & Fadel, 2009)
The objective of this work was to evaluate the use of soybean, pigeon pea, and jack bean as urease sources for elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum) hay ammoniated with urea
The hay treated with soybean had a higher ether extract content than that treated with jack bean or pigeon pea because soybean itself yielded a higher ether extract content than either jack bean or pigeon pea (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Ammonization of low-quality forage with urea is cheap and accessible for farmers (Vadiveloo & Fadel, 2009). Urea has advantages over anhydrous ammonia, such as greater commercial availability and transportability. Moisture and urea activity in forage interfere with ammonization efficiency and, with ammonia production (Ramírez et al, 2007). Ammonia reacts with water to form ammonium hydroxide, which degrades ester links between lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose; increases the access of ruminal. Soybean (Medeiros-Silva et al, 2014) and jack bean (Piovesan et al, 2014) are common urease sources. Other legumes like pigeon pea, contain this enzyme (Balasubramanian et al, 2013)

Objectives

Methods

Results