3.3. Effects of different number of scouring pad cubes
Number of nylon scouring pad cubes played a big impact on the production of pectinase enzymes. Fig. 3 shows pectinase produc-tion increased and produced the highest pectinase activity with9.18 U/mL and fungal growth 8.95 g/L when 6 cubes were used.Higher or lower number of cubes than the optimized numbersproduced lower pectinase production. Even though there wereno significant different (Duncan, p > 0.05) on pectinase productionfrom the flask containing 6 and 8 nylon scouring pad cubes but6 nylon cubes gave the highest yield of pectinase. Fungal growthwas observed to increase slowly from none nylon cubes condi-tions (6.08 g/L) to 4 nylon cubes and then increased drastically to 10nylon cubes (15.08 g/L). It was noted that when exceeded the opti-mal number of scouring pad cubes an increased in biomass did notresult in an equivalent increase in enzyme synthesis. The decline ofpectinase production after reaching the maximum level could beresults of the fungus are starting to hydrolyze the enzymes for thesynthesis of cell biomass. Hence, the results obtained suggest thatthe production of the enzyme by this method is not growth relatedwhen exceeded optimal number of scouring pad cubes. Accordingto Klein [29] the matrix functioned as a way to significantly increase