White-rot fungal conversion of wheat straw to energy rich cattle feed

In order to improve the digestibility and nutrient availability in rumen, wheat straw was subjected to solid state fermentation (SSF) with white-rot fungi (i.e. Pleurotus ostreatus and Trametes versicolor) and the fermented biomass (called myco-straw) was evaluated for biochemical, enzymatic and nutritional parameters. The fungal treatment after 30 days led to significant decrease (P < 0.05) in cell wall constituents viz, acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), hemicellulose, lignin and cellulose to the extent of 35.00, 38.88, 45.00, 37.48 and 37.86%, respectively in P. ostreatus fermented straw, while 30.04, 33.85, 39.90, 31.29 and 34.00%, respectively in T. versicolor fermented straw. However, maximum efficiency of fermentation in terms of low carbohydrate consumption per unit of lignin degradation, favoring cattle feed production was observed for P. ostreatus on the 10th day (17.12%) as compared with T. versicolor on the 30th day (16.91%). The myco-straw was found to contain significantly high (P < 0.05) crude protein (CP; 4.77% T. versicolor, 5.08% P. ostreatus) as compared to control straw (3.37%). Metabolizable energy (ME, MJ/kg DM), percent organic matter digestibility (OMD) and short chain fatty acids (SCFAs; mmol) production also increased considerably from control straw (4.40, 29.91 and 0.292) to a maximum up to P. ostreatus fermented straw (4.92, 33.39 and 0.376 on 20th day) and T. versicolor fermented straw (4.66, 31.74 and 0.334 on 10th day), respectively. Moreover, the myco-straw had lower organic carbon and was rich in nitrogen with lower C/N ratio as compared to control wheat straw. Results suggest that the fungal fermentation of wheat straw effectively improved CP content, OM digestibility, SCFAs production, ME value and simultaneously lowered the C/N ratio, thus showing potential for bioconversion of lignin rich wheat straw into high energy cattle feed.