Digestibility by sheep of total and cell wall monosaccharides of wheat straw treated chemically or chemically plus enzymatically.

Digestibility of total and cell wall monosaccharides was studied in sheep with ruminal and duodenal cannulae and fed three wheat straw-based diets: untreated, treated with SO2, treated with SO2 plus cellulase and a fourth diet, which was barley-based. In untreated straw, 90% of total monosaccharides are cell wall bound. Sulfur dioxide treatment solubilized mainly the matrix sugars, reducing their content from 22.1 to 9.76 g/100 g DM in straw. The combined treatment (SO2 plus cellulase) solubilized most of the cell wall sugars so that the most of the cell wall sugars so that the residual cell wall contained only 31% of the total sugars originally present. Treatments increased total monosaccharide digestibility from 63 to 90% and of cell wall monosaccharides from 58 to 84 and 88%. The proportion of digestible monosaccharides degraded in the rumen was increased up to 95% by the treatments. Total monosaccharide digestibility was similar in both treated straws, but degradation of the residual cell wall monosaccharides was somewhat lower in the combined treatment compared with the SO2-treated straw.