One group was fed Napier grass ad libitum and 3 kg of maize bran daily (control).
The fish are fed from farm waste and by-products, such as chicken manure and maize bran.
In experiment 1, different levels of A. tortilis in the concentrate were compared: high (2 kg DM pods, 1 kg DM maize bran), low (1 kg DM pods, 1 kg DM sunflower seed cake, 1 kg DM maize bran) and control (2 kg DM of sunflower seed cakes and 1 kg DM maize bran).
In experiment 2, the same treatments with F. albida and with an additional treatment with 2 kg DM soaked pods and 1 kg DM maize bran were included.
The first part of the study focused on evaluating an indigenous microorganism (IMO) bioinoculant that is mixed with water and a carbon source, such as maize bran or sugar, and incubated before applying to crops as an alternative to chemical fertilizers.
Using Illumina 16S rRNA gene sequencing, I evaluated shifts in bacterial communities that resulted from incubating IMO with different carbon sources (maltose, glucose, sucrose, glucose with fructose, and maize bran) for varying lengths of time (48 and 72 hours) in limited aeration conditions.
The four diets were: wild Napier grass + mineral/vitamin mixture (WN), wild Napier grass + 0.5 kg fishmeal + 0.5 kg maize bran + mineral/vitamin mixture (MB+FM), wild Napier grass + 0.5 kg molasses + mineral/vitamin mixture (MO) and wild Napier grass + 0.5 kg fishmeal + 0.5 kg molasses + mineral/vitamin mixture (MO+FM).
Very lacking information exists on microbial population during maize bran fermentation.
This is the first report on association between LAB and yeasts in maize bran fermentation process.
Moreover, even if maize bran has been reported as a substrate resistant to enzymatic digestibility (Agger et al. 2010), our results suggest an AX "destructuration", during maize bran fermentation.
Thus, this study was performed to characterize maize bran, at microbiological and chemical level during a sourdough like fermentation process.
