No abstract

Oil palm plantation is one multibillion-dollar commodity crops in Malaysia. All part of palm tree is reusable which no parts will turn into waste. Oil palm trunk has cellulosic structure that is categorised as woody materials. Current issue is the drying process of the oil palm trunk is too long and it can be reduced by chemically and microwave treatment. The treatment densified and compacted the oil palm trunk into other woody elements. The experimental study investigated the chemical treatment by varying dipping time in methanol between 5 to 20 minutes and microwave power input ranges between 40% to 100%. The combination treatment of 80% microwave power and 15 minutes dipping in methanol give the highest moisture reduction. The morphological aspect of palm trunk was investigate using LEO Supra 50 Vp field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) with ultra-high resolution.

Background Malaysia is one of the largest producer of palm oil in the world with yearly yield of 19 000 million tonnes. With its large scale production of palm oil, Malaysia produces approximately 30 million tonnes of oil palm fronds (OPF) annually. The OPF as the main agricultural by-product in Malaysia have limited use especially as ruminant feed. It is due to its poor degradability which is caused by its high lignin content. One of the most promising method to increase the utilization of OPF as ruminant feed is via biological pretreatment. Previous study has shown an increase of 12% of ruminal degradability when pretreated using enzyme extract from white rot fungi Results The isolation of fungi yielded 11 fungi isolates. Upon the determination of their laccase, manganese peroxidase, lignin peroxidase, carboxylmethylcellulase, avicelase and xylanase, fungi F1, F2 and F4 were selected as the fungi with desirable enzyme activity. The fungi F1, F2 and F4 were then identified as Trichoderma harzianum MK027304, Trichoderma harzianum MK027305 and Fusarium solani MK027307 respectively. The highest total gas production was produced by OPF pretreated with enzyme extract from 15 days of solid state fermentation of Trichoderma harzianum MK027304. The highest methane was produced by OPF pretreated with enzyme extract from 30 days of solid state fermentation of Trichoderma harzianum MK027305. Highest volatile acid produced by OPF pretreated with enzyme extract from Fusarium solani MK027307 after 45 days of solid state fermentation. The apparent rumen degradable carbohydrate of the pretreatment also showed the highest increase over the unpretreated OPF with increment of 35.29%. Conclusions The pretreatment using enzyme extract from 45 days of solid state fermentation of Fusarium solani MK027307 have shown the ability to increase the degradability of OPF by 35.29%. This finding may decrease the feeding cost of ruminant by increasing the effectiveness of utilization of OPF.

This study aims to increase the in vitro ruminal degradability of oil palm fronds (OPFs) through enzymatic pretreatment. The isolated fungi were selected based on their lignocellulosic degrading enzyme activities. Eleven fungi were successfully isolated, and their enzyme activities were evaluated. Three fungi, F1, F2 and F4 were selected, and they were identified as Trichoderma harzianum MK027305, Trichoderma harzianum MK027306 and Fusarium solani MK027309, respectively. The highest total gas and methane production was produced when OPFs were pretreated with an enzyme extract from 15 and 30 days of solid-state fermentation of T. harzianum MK027305 and T. harzianum MK027306, respectively. Meanwhile, OPFs pretreated with an enzyme extract from F. solani MK027309 after 45 days of solid-state fermentation produced the highest amount of volatile fatty acids. The pretreatment using the enzymes extracted from 45 days of solid-state fermentation of F. solani MK027309 increases the apparent rumen degradable carbohydrate (ARDC) by 35.29% compared to unpretreated OPF. This study showed that pretreatment of the OPFs using selected fungi’s enzymes increases the volatile fatty acid production and in vitro ruminal degradability of OPF, hence improving livestock production via increased utilization of agricultural by-products with minimal impact on the production cost.