Evaluation of the feeding value of palm press fibre using in vitro digestibility techniques

Palm press fibre (PPF) was obtained from two sources, a small-scale oil pal m processing unit and a large-scale factory processing unit, and its chemic al composition was determined. In vitro digestibility techniques were used to assess the feeding value of untreated, defatted and sodium hydroxide-tre ated PPF. For the NaOH treatment, 0.5 g oven-dried PPF was treated for 24 h with 5% NaOH in three ways: treated and not washed (NaNW); treated and was hed (NaW); and treated after milling (NAD). The results indicate that, on a dry matter basis, PPF is low in nitrogen (1 2-13 g/kg), moisture (37-90 g/kg) and ash (53-62 g/kg), but high in ether e xtract (269-355 g/kg), neutral detergent fibre (532-768 g/kg), acid deterge nt fibre (375-548 g/kg) and lignin (219 g/kg). The in vitro dry matter dige stibility values were low for the samples from both sources, but the large- scale factory-processed PPF had higher in vitro dry matter digestibility (0 .215 vs 0.166) and in vitro organic matter digestibility (0.196 vs 0.145). Defatting the PPF and treating it with 5% NaOH solution significantly (p <0 .01) improved both the dry matter and organic matter digestibility. Washing the NaOH-treated PPF resulted in a higher digestibility of dry matter as a gainst NaNW or NAD. These results suggest that defatting and treatment with 5% NaOH would improve the feeding value of PPF.