In vitro digestibility
In vitro digestibility of uninoculated and fungal-treated PS was estimated according to Akhter et al. 1999 and Arora and Sharma 2009b. Faecal inoculum was prepared by mixing fresh faecal matter of cow (100 g l−1) in prewarmed (39°C) artificial saliva (NaHCO3 9·80 g, Na2HPO4.7H2O 7·00 g, KCl 0·57 g, NaCl 0·47 g, MgSO4.7H2O 0·12 g and 1 ml CaCl2 (4%, w/v) in 1000 ml of distilled water) and filtered through four layered muslin cloth. Five hundred milligrams of substrate was taken in a 50-ml centrifuge tube and suspended in 35 ml of faecal inoculum. After flushing with CO2 gas, these tubes were kept at 39°C for 48 h in a water bath. Supernatant was discarded and 35 ml of acidified pepsin (1 : 3000) was added to the residue. Tubes were again incubated at the same conditions for 48 h, and then residue was filtered on a tared filter paper and dried. The weight loss in dry matter during the processing has been expressed as in vitro digestibility.
Statistical analysis
Data were calculated by anova. The correlation between different parameters was established by using Pearson’s correlation coefficient.