Department of Animal Nutrition, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, India
Maize, barley and rice grains were soaked in 1:2 ratio in 5, 10 or 15 per cent urea solutions for 12 or 24 hr, strained, autoclaved for 5, 10 and 15 ruin, and dried at 50°C. Irrespective of urea level and soaking period, the barley grains exhibited the highest (P<0.05) water holding capacity, N-uptake and in-vitro TCA prccipitable N production as compared to maize and rice.
The effect of soaking interval on the above parameters, irrespective of other factors like type of cereal grains, urea level and autoclaving time, increased significantly (P<0.05) with the increase in soaking from 12 to 24 hr.
The effect of urea level, irrespective of the other factors revealed that water holding capacity was depressed with the increase in urea level. On the contrary, N-uptake and bound urea-N increased (P<0.05) linearly. The in-vitro release of TCA precipitable-N increased only upto 10% urea level beyond which it did not have any beneficial effect.
Autoclaving irrespective of other factors depressed the N-uptake by cereal grains but bound urea-N and in-vitro TCA-N production increased with autoclaving interval. It was concluded that barley grains were highly responsive to urea treatment and that best results could be achieved by treating with 10% urea soaked for 24 hr followed by autoclaving for 15 min.
Cereal grains, Urea, Autoclaving, In-vitro evaluation
