Evaluation of the nutritive value of sugarcane residues inoculated with fungus Fomes sp

Objective. Improve the nutritional value of mechanized sugarcane residues inoculating the fungus Fomes sp. EUM1. Materials and methods. The fungus Fomes was inoculated according to a 0, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3% (w/v) treatment and incubated at a temperature of 35°C for 7, 10 and 13 days. It was obtained DM, OM, CP, ash, NDF and ADF and the effective degradation of DM, NDF and ADF, with an experimental factorial design of 3X3 and a completely randomized design. The factors were growing days in an Erlenmeyer flask (7, 10, and 13) and inoculum percentage (0.1, 0.2 and 0.3). The data were analyzed with the SAS statistical package. Results. Statistical significance was found in the interaction of the fungus growing days by percentage of inoculum, in the variables: DM, CP and pH. The NDF and ADF factor differed in the percentage of inoculum. Effective degradation showed significant for the same type of interaction in all the variables studied. Conclusions. The inoculation of the fungus increased ADF degradation by only 0.2% of the inoculum percentage, without any effect on effective degradation due to the use of soluble fractions at the beginning of the incubation. It is considered that the degradation occurs in stages that are important to consider for determining treatments to maximize the beneficial effects of the fungus in terms of ruminant nutrition.