A comparison is made of the performance of two pretreatments for bleaching wheat-straw pulp based on the DED (chlorine dioxide, extraction with soda and hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide) sequence and the use of the fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium of the enzyme cartazyme H.S. Paper brightness was found to increase in the following pulp order : unbleached (32.4) < untreated-bleached (58.4) < bleached-fungally treated (68.2) < bleached-enzymically treated (72.4). On the other hand, the physical properties of the paper sheets obtained from the different types of pulp varied very little; both pretreatments decreased the breaking length and burst index while increasing the tear index. The changes were somewhat less marked for the enzyme treatment (- 2.3%, - 4.0%, and + 16.8%, respectively, relative to the untreated-bleached pulp).