No abstract

Lines of peas (no. = 213) grown in the same location were analysed for 1000 seed weight, protein, starch, fat, sugars, ashes and fibre content. Some 54 lines of peas out of the total 213 were grown in large amounts and analysed for the same criteria and also for amino acids, legumin, vicilin, lectins, trypsin inhibitor activity, carbohydrates, fatty acids, tannins, saponins. The lines have been arranged into four categories according to the shape, colour, weight, chemical composition and end uses of the seeds. Feed peas and garden peas are round and have similar composition in terms of protein, starch and fibre contents; they are tannin-free and have variable trypsin inhibitor activity. Coloured peas have also a round shape but differ from the feed and garden peas principally by tannins and also by lower starch, higher protein, higher fibre contents. Wrinkled peas differ from the feed and garden peas by lower starch, higher protein, higher fibre, higher lipid contents and their starch is characterized by a higher amylose/amylopectine ratio.

The nutritional value of different categories of peas was measured in mash or pelleted diets using adult cockerels. Twenty-five round and white-flowered peas (feed peas), 12 round and coloured-flowered peas and five wrinkled and white-flowered peas were used in mash diets. From the same batches, 11 feed peas, five coloured peas and four wrinkled peas were tested in pelleted diets.Mean apparent metabolizable energy (AME) values were 12·02, 11·35 and 10·50 MJ/kg dry matter (DM) for feed peas, coloured peas and wrinkled peas respectively in mash diets and 13·18, 12·72 and 11·63 MJ/kg DM for the same categories in pelleted diets.Mean starch digestibility was 0·905, 0·887 and 0·802 for feed peas, coloured peas and wrinkled peas respectively in mash diets and 0·985, 0·984 and 0·840 for these categories in pelleted diets.Mean protein digestibility was 0·788, 0·643 and 0·798 for feed peas, coloured peas and wrinkled peas respectively in mash diets and corresponding values for peas in pelleted diets were 0·855, 0·743 and 0·853.Pelleting thus had a positive effect on the nutritional value of peas and this improvement was all the more important because the AME and protein digestibility of the pea in mash diets was low.The nutritional value of feed peas for cockerels was not strongly correlated with chemical composition or to digestibility data obtained in the pig.

Rapeseed meal is a cheap and abundant raw material, particularly rich in phenolic compounds of biotechnological interest. In this study, we developed a two-step bioconversion process of naturally occurring sinapic acid (4-hydroxy-3,5-dimethoxycinnamic acid) from rapeseed meal into canolol by combining the complementary potentialities of two filamentous fungi, the micromycete Aspergillus niger and the basidiomycete Neolentinus lepideus. Canolol could display numerous industrial applications because of its high antioxidant, antimutagenic and anticarcinogenic properties. In the first step of the process, the use of the enzyme feruloyl esterase type-A (named AnFaeA) produced with the recombinant strain A. niger BRFM451 made it possible to release free sinapic acid from the raw meal by hydrolysing the conjugated forms of sinapic acid in the meal (mainly sinapine and glucopyranosyl sinapate). An amount of 39 nkat AnFaeA per gram of raw meal, at 55 °C and pH 5, led to the recovery of 6.6 to 7.4 mg of free sinapic acid per gram raw meal, which corresponded to a global hydrolysis yield of 68 to 76% and a 100% hydrolysis of sinapine. Then, the XAD2 adsorbent (a styrene and divinylbenzene copolymer resin), used at pH 4, enabled the efficient recovery of the released sinapic acid, and its concentration after elution with ethanol. In the second step, 3-day-old submerged cultures of the strain N. lepideus BRFM15 were supplied with the recovered sinapic acid as the substrate of bioconversion into canolol by a non-oxidative decarboxylation pathway. Canolol production reached 1.3 g/L with a molar yield of bioconversion of 80% and a productivity of 100 mg/L day. The same XAD2 resin, when used at pH 7, allowed the recovery and purification of canolol from the culture broth of N. lepideus. The two-step process used mild conditions compatible with green chemistry.

Nineteen round white-feed peas (FP) varieties, six coloured-flowered peas (CP) varieties and four wrinkled white-flowered peas (WP) varieties were given to growing pigs in order to measure their feeding value. Mean values of energy apparent digestibility measured at the faecal level of FP, CP and WP were respectively 0·886, 0·812 and 0·823. Mean values for digestible energy were 16·34, 1506 and 15·60 M]l kg dry matter. Mean values of faecal apparent digestibility of protein were 0·840, 0·760 and 0·828. The lower energy and crude protein (CP) apparent digestibility of CP relative to FP can be explained by their higher fibre content and by the presence of condensed tannins whilst the lower energy and CP apparent digestibility in WP relative to FP can be explained by their higher fibre content, their lower starch content and their higher amylosel amylopectine ratio. Among the feed peas, there was no difference between peas with low trypsin inhibitor activity and peas with medium trypsin inhibitor activity.