IMPROVING SHELF LIFE AND NUTRITIVE VALUE OF WET DISTILLER’S GRAIN

Abstract

Wet distiller's grain is one of the important agroindustrial by-products used for feeding dairy cattle. A study was conducted to enhance the shelf life of distillers grains and identify and quantify the deficit nutrients in it so that a supplemental strategy could be evolved to enhance its nutritive value. Twelve samples were collected from grain-based distilleries in Southern India and subjected to proximate analysis (AOAC, 2000), fibre fractionation (Goering and Van Soest, 1970) and were also analysed for calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, iron, copper and zinc. In vitro degradability studies were conducted using rumen simulation technique (RUSITEC) described by Czerkawski and Breckenridge (1977). Also, another study was conducted to enhance the shelflife of wet distiller’s grain by addition of deoiled rice bran (DORB) and salt at twelve differentlevels.Samples were collected on 2^nd,4^th, 6^th, 8^th and 10^th days for estimation of pH (Wilson and Wilkins, 1972), mould count and yeast count (Jenkins, 1992). The degradation rate/hour, degradable soluble, degradable insoluble, undegradable and effective degradability of dry matter respectively were 0.16±0.02, 53.8±1.32,31±1.41, 15.2±1.07 and 76.87±0.43 percent and the same for nitrogen respectively were 0.12±0.01, 31.2±1.16, 53.8±1.28,15±0.95 and 62.39±1.59 per cent in wet distillers grains.The results indicate that mould count was significantly(p<0.05) lower in wet distiller’s grain and deoiled rice bran (DORB) combination of 70:30 irrespective of the number of days of preservation. Further adding salt in all combinations of distiller’s grain and DERB reduced the growth of yeast or mould.