STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING NUTRIENT PROFILE OF DE-OILED RICE BRAN (DORB) THROUGH SOLID STATE FERMENTATION  

De-oiled rice bran (DORB) is the major ingredients in fish feeds in India, which is fed either singly or in combination with other ingredients. This is an agro-industrial by-product obtained after extraction of oil from rice bran. DORB production in India is presently 8 MMT. Presently the aquaculture sector is consistently growing at 8% per annum during last decade. Hence it is expected that the aquaculture production will be double by 2025, where there will be great demand of DORB as it constitute a major portion of fish feed. Hence, strategic approach for complete utilization of DORB to reduce FCR is required which will pave the way for bridging between demand and supply of DORB.

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of Solid State Fermentation with Rhizopus oryzae and Aspergillus oryzae on nutrient profile of DORB. The DORB was inoculated with 7 day old culture of R.oryzae and A. oryzae grown on Potato dextrose Agar (PDA) at room temperature. The initial moisture level of the substrate was adjusted to 50 % with sterile distilled water and the experiment was conducted in triplicates for 120 hrs .The samples of 0, 24, 48, 96 and 120 hr were collected from each treatment for the proximate analysis. It was found that the crude protein content of the fermented DORB increased 1.9 fold (from 14 % to 26.97 %) with R. oryzae after 72 hrs of incubation and thereafter decreased gradually with the time. Whereas A. oryzae treated samples showed only 1.29 fold increase (from 14% to 18.05 %) in protein content after 72 hrs. of incubation and decreased   thereafter. The experiment concludes that the nutrient profile of DORB which is a common feed ingredient of fish feed can be improved by Solid State fermentation effectively by using R.oryzae.