A Preliminary Study of Nutritional Enhancement of Duckweed (Lemna minor) through Fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus sp.

Duckweed is generally only used as an alternative feed for animals and is less optimized as a source of additional food for humans. The application of duckweed, Lemna minor, is still limiting. To optimize the utilization of L. minor, increasing nutrient content of L. minor through a fermentation process is necessary. The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of fermentation on nutrient content of the duckweed. L. minor was fermented using the combination of local isolate: Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus sp. Variations on the length of the fermentation time are using ranges of 0, 3 and 7 days for fermentation time. The fermented samples were then subjected to proximate, pH, color analysis. Amino acid analysis was performed on the best treatment. The results showed that the fermentation process using the consortium of S. cerevisiae and Lactobacillus sp. increased the nutritional quality of L. minor which includes an increase in protein content. The results of amino acid analysis also showed good results for fermented L. minor. Hence, fermentation represents an innovative approach to enhance the protein content and overall nutritional quality of duckweed.