Investigating the effects of lime pretreatment in a processing reactor on nutritive value of date palm leaves evaluated with gas production technique and scanning electron microscopy

Palm date leaves were processed with lime in a processing reactor in a factorial arrangement of treatments (3 × 3) with 3 levels of temperatures (40, 80 and 100°C) and time periods (80, 160, and 240 minutes) in a completely randomized design. Fermentation parameters measured using gas production technique. With increasing pretreatment time and temperature lignin content reduced from 13.0 percent in untreated leaves to 6.0 percent in leaves treated in 100°C for 240 min. Increasing time and temperature of the processing decreased ash content (P