Prediction of 48 hin situdegradability from chemical analyses andin vitrofermentation of sugar cane bagasse treated with varying levels of electron irradiation and ammonia

Abstract

Sugar cane bagasse is produced in large quantities in Brazil. The cultivated area of sugar cane in recent years has been around 4.2 X 106 ha/year, with a production of about 270 X 106 t/year of cane. As each tonne of cane produces around 300 kg of bagasse by-product, a large quantity of bagasse is generated.Bagasse is of low dry matter (DM) digestibility (about 250 g/kg), because of lignification. Efforts have been made to improve the digestibility of bagasse using treatment with chemicals (sodium hydroxide, ammonia) or steam (Abdalla et al., 1990). Although steam and pressure treatments have improved in situ degradability, intake and digestibility in cattle were disappointing (Mello et al, 1989). Recently treatment of bagasse with irradiation and ammonia have been investigated.