New Method for Determination of Feather Degradation in Soil

摘要

Several millions of tonnes of feather waste generated by poultry and other livestock leads to troublesome environmental pollution. Wastage of protein-rich reserve is ultimately converted into feather meal using keratinolytic fungi. The keratin degrading fungi produce the enzyme keratinase, which has attracted a great deal of attention. The keratinases are involved in many industrial and medicinal applications. Hence, these keratinophilic fungi and their extracellular metabolites are of practical relevance. The addition of microbial digested feather meal to the animal feed improves digestibility and bolstered growth of poultry. Nutritional enhancement can also be achieved by hydrolysis of raw feathers using these keratinolytic fungi. Microbial-digested feather meal is also used as slow nitrogen releasing fertilizer. Soil samples from different habitats revealed 14-90 % increase in nitrogen content as a result of feather degradation in 30 d. The nitrogen contents were measured in eight habitats before and after 30 d incubation period. The highest nitrogen was measured in earthworm castings and the lowest was in garden soil.