Dr. Juan Tricarico of Alltech described Exciting new technologies for the feedyard to a full room of Global Beef 500 attendees. Tricarico started off with a brief refresher course on enzymes and how they break down cellulose and hemi-cellulose. He then launched into results from various trials with Fibrozyme^TM, a fibrolytic enzyme with cellulase and hemicellulase activities for ruminants.

Ruminal fiber digestion was improved by increasing fiber digestion and fiber digestion efficiency. This shows that fibrolytic enzymes can improve production when fiber digestion limits dry matter intake or efficiency. Common scenarios that may result in poor fiber digestion include mixed diets (forage / concentrate), low ruminal pH, and depressed microbial growth.