STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TECHNIQUE FOR PRESERVING STRAW UNDER WET CONDITION IN BANGLADESH

About 7.7 million tons of straw dry matter are being rotten during the monsoon. The objective of this trial was to develop a technique to preserve straw under wet condition. To simulate the moisture content of wet straw, a dry straw was deeped overnight in water. After draining the excess water, the wet straw(668 g moisture $kg^{-1}$) was divided into twenty fractions and preserved with 0, 30, 50 ro 70 g urea $kg^{-1}$ dry matter for either of 30, 60, 90, 120 or 180 days in sealed plastic container. Considering the colour, smell, fungal infestation and pH, the wert straw was preserved excellently up to 180 days when 50 or 70 g of urea per kg DM was used. Urea preservation increased the crude protein contents of straw by 3.6 to 6.4 times (174 to $364g{\cdot}kg^{-1}$) over that of the dry straw ($48g{\cdot}kg^{-1}$). Although the NDF content of straw was not effected by the level of urea or by the length of the preservation period, but the ADF content increased (p > 0.05) by 0.086 to $0.889g{\cdot}kg^{-1}$ straw DM for each g increase in the urea level. At 48 hours, the DM degradability of dry straw was $350g{\cdot}kg^{-1}$, which increased to $633g{\cdot}kg^{-1}$ when preserved with 50 g urea $kg^{-1}$ for 180 days. For the same straw, both the rate(0.0388 vs. 0.0136 fraction $h^{-1}$), the extent(717 vs. $631g{\cdot}kg^{-1}$) of straw degradation and the estimated ME(9.55 vs. $6.51MJ{\cdot}kg^{-1}$ straw DM) were higher in the preserved than the dry straw.