The nitrogen (N) effect of legumes is one of the main reasons for their inclusion in rotation systems and their success in rainfed agriculture of Mediterranean areas. The comparative analysis of this effect in relation to alternative systems or practices is essential for a comprehensive appreciation in their merit. This field experiment was comprised of four three-year rotation cycles. Wheat (T...

Chaffed wheat straw was treated with a seven per cent solution of urea and sealed for three weeks before feeding to sheep. Mature wethers received either this urea-treated straw or straw that had received an equivalent amount of urea mixed in with it at feeding. Both straws were fed either with or without lupins at 200 g/hd/d for seven weeks. DM intake was increased both by the urea treatment a...

Agricultural residues such as corn fiber, rice hulls and wheat straw can be used as abundant low-cost feedstock for production of fuel ethanol. However, the cost of cellulase enzymes to saccharify cellulose to glucose is a major hindrance. As an alternative, a novel process to obtain industrially important cellulose acetate from these by-products after removing hemicellulosic sugars was develop...

The objective of the present study was to determine the effect of wood shavings, wheat straw, and their mixture as litter material on growth performance in broilers from 1 d to 42 d of age. A total of one hundred and fifty oneday-old Hubbard chicks were used in our experiment, weighed and assigned at random into 6 pens of 25 birds each. There were two replicates of each of the following three t...

Background Pig manure utilization and valorization is an important topic with tightening regulations focused on ecological and safety issues. By itself pig manure is a poor substrate for biogas production because of its excessive nitrogen content relative to available organic carbon. Such substrate is alkaline, and methanogenesis can be suppressed, and so additional substrates with high organic...

Lignocelluloses are often a major or sometimes the sole components of different waste streams from various industries, forestry, agriculture and municipalities. Hydrolysis of these materials is the first step for either digestion to biogas (methane) or fermentation to ethanol. However, enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocelluloses with no pre-treatment is usually not so effective because of high stab...

Integration of wheat straw for a biorefinery-based energy generation process by producing ethanol and biogas together with the production of high-protein fungal biomass (suitable for feed application) was the main focus of the present study. An edible ascomycete fungal strain Neurospora intermedia was used for the ethanol fermentation and subsequent biomass production from dilute phosphoric aci...

The potential of two alkali-tolerant, lignocellulolytic environmental enrichment cultures to improve the anaerobic fermentation of Ca(OH)₂-pre-treated wheat straw was studied. The biomethane potential of pre-treated straw was 36% higher than that of untreated straw. The bioaugmentation of pre-treated straw with the enrichment cultures did not enhance the methane yield, but accelerated the metha...

Sixteen rams (mean age: 13 mo; mean live weight: 40.0 ± 2.4 kg) were randomly allotted to four dietary treatments in a completely randomized design (4 rams per treatment). Diets (dry matter basis) contained 65% concentrate and 35% alfalfa hay (control diet, T1), 35% wheat straw (T2), 35% barley straw (T3) or 35% maize straw (T4). Total-tract apparent digestibility for dry matter, organic matter...

A solid state fermentation method was used to utilize wheat straw as substrates for citric acid production by using Aspergillus niger ATCC 9142. The Plackett Burman design (PBD) of experiments was used to test the relative importance of the variables affecting production such as moisture content, age of spore, inoculum size, initial pH of substrate, methanol conce...