Bulk density is one of the important engineering property of biomass having significant impact on the supply logistics and processing in ethanol production facilities using lignocellulosic materials. Bulk density of most of the comminuted biomass significantly increased by tapping. Switchgrass, wheat straw and corn stover were chopped in a knife mill at different operating conditions including ...

Access to open water is considered good for the welfare of Pekin ducks. These studies investigated the effect that the type of water resource, provided over either straw bedding or a rubber mesh, had on measures of duck health. Pekin strain ducklings (n = 2,600) were managed in pens of 100 on straw over a solid concrete floor. In study 1, one of two water resources (nipple, n = 5 pens; wide-lip...

It has recently been proposed that fluctuating "pulled" fronts propagating into an unstable state should not be in the standard Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class for rough interface growth. We introduce an effective field equation for this class of problems, and show on the basis of it that noisy pulled fronts in d+1 bulk dimensions should be in the universality class of the ((d+1)+1...

Use of alkali-pretreated rice straw and untreated rice straw as substrates for enzyme production under solid-state cultivation was investigated. Cellulase produced from untreated rice straw showed higher activity of FPase, CMCase, β-glucosidase, and xylanase at 6.25 U/g substrate, 111.31 U/g substrate, 173.71 U/g substrate, and 433.75 U/g substrate respectively, as compared to 1.72 U/g substrat...

The aims of the current work are in large part the benefit of rice straw to be used as adsorbent material and natural source of fiber in Fino bread. The rice straw was subjected to high temperature for modification process and the chemical composition was carried out and the native rice straw contained about 41.15% cellulose, 20.46% hemicellulose, and 3.91% lignin while modified rice straw has ...

A field experiment with six treatments was conducted to study the nitrogen reserves in summer maize topsoil on the north China plain. Results showed that topdressing significantly increased topsoil nitrogen reserves. Summer corn topsoil nitrogen reserves were affected by several management measures. Shallow tillage, wheat straw no-returning and deep intertillage at the corn seedling stage signi...

Promoting generalist predators in agriculture via habitat manipulation has gained much interest in biocontrol research. Straw shelters have been used by Chinese farmers for .2,000 yr to provide temporary spider refugia during cyclic farming disturbances. This method, however, has not been systematically investigated on larger scales in western-style agriculture. Our preliminary observations ind...

Two in vitro experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of methylcellulose (MC) on i) bacterial detachment from rice straw as well as ii) inhibition of bacterial attachment and fiber digestibility. To evaluate the effect of MC on fibrolytic bacterial detachment (Exp 1), in vitro bacterial cultures with 0.1% (w/v) MC solution were compared with cultures without MC after 8 h incubation. Th...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of rumen inoculum from heifers with fast vs. slow rate of in situ fiber digestion on the fermentation of complex versus easily digested fiber sources in the forms of untreated and Ammonia Fiber Expansion (AFEX) treated barley straw, respectively, using an artificial rumen simulation technique (Rusitec). In situ fiber digestion was measured i...

Residues from cereal grain production are important feedstuffs for ruminants throughout the world. They are, however, low in protein and high in fiber, which limit feed intake and digestibility. The nutritive value of cereal crop residues can be improved by various processing methods, such as treatment with alkalis like sodium hydroxide or ammonia. Another means of improving nutritive value of ...