Evaluation of some unconventional trees/plants as ruminant feeds in Central Vietnam

Evaluation of some unconventional trees/plants as ruminant feeds in Central Vietnam

LRRD 15(6)2003 Evaluation of some unconventional trees/plants as ruminant feeds in Central Vietnam Nguyen Xuan Ba and Le Duc Ngoan Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry nthanhhuong@dng.vnn.vn Abstract This investigation was aimed at evaluating foliage production and nutritive value of Muntingia calabuara, Hibiscus rosa sinensis L, Mulberry (Morus alba) and Trichanthera gigantea based on chemical composition, rumen degradability and gas production The trees were planted from stem cuttings at spacing of 0.2*0.5m for Mulberry and Trichanthera, 0.2*1.0m for Hibiscus and 1*1 for Muntingia calabuara, which was planted from seedlings The plot size was 25m² for each of the trees The fresh biomass production (average of the first harvests at 10 week intervals) was 13.7, 8.1, 8.9 and 19.6 tonnes/ha for Hibiscus rosa sinensis L, two local varieties of Morus alba and Trichanthera gigantea, respectively Muntingia calabuara did not re-grow after the first harvest Rumen degradability of dry matter as well as gas production was higher in leaves and foliage of Morus alba and Hibiscus rosa sinensis L than the others Dry matter loss (in sacco) at 48h or gas production at 48h were better predictors of nutritive value than the coefficients of the fitted curve [P = a + b (1 - e -ct)] In general, Morus alba, Hibiscus rosa sinensis L and Trichanthera gigantea trees seem to be promising fodder species especially in the dry season in central Vietnam Key words: Gas production, Hibiscus rosa sinensis L, Morus alba, Muntingia calabuara, rumen degradability, Trichanthera gigantea Introduction In central Vietnam, the population of ruminants occupy around 45% of the total live stock in the whole country Because of harsh conditions (high temperature, low rainfall in the dry season), shortage of animal feed is a big problem for livestock development, particularly for grazing cattle The main feed supplement for animals during the dry season is rice and maize straws and various crop residues Quantity and quality of feed is usually limited, particularly the protein content This is reflected in poor animal performance In recent years, there have been many studies on the of tree foliages as supplements for live stock (Leng 1997) In central Vietnam, there are some indigenous trees that can be used as forages Among these are:     "Trung Ca" (Muntingia calabura) belonging to the family Elaeocarpacae It can grow everywhere (sandy land, humid areas, and high land area) and is well adapted to the dry season in central Vietnam The farmers use it as shade tree around the homestead, and along the roads Trung Ca is a tall tree with a large canopy of leaves but it has not been used for animals "Dam But" (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L.) belongs to the Malvacae family It adapts and grows well during the dry season in Central Vietnam The most common planting method is by stem cuttings The tree is grown as a live fence In some areas "Dam But" is fed to rabbits and goats Mulberry (Morus spp) belongs to the Moraceae Family (Subtype Angiosperms; Class Dicotyledons; Subclass Urticales) and there are several species Mulberry leaves have been the traditional feed for silk worms In Vietnam there are many varieties with high yield In recent years, the area of Mulberry has decreased due to reduced activities in silk processing and limited market The traditional way of using mulberry as animal feed in silk-producing areas is to feed ruminants with the residue left by the silk worm Trichanthera gigantea is a tree of the Acanthaceae family and is apparently native to the Andean foothills of Colombia (Rosales 1997) The tree was introduced into Vietnam in 1991 and has been readily adopted by farmers throughout the country because of its tolerance to a wide range of ecological conditions and apparent resistance to pest and diseases (Nguyen Ngoc Ha and Phan Thi Phan 1993; Nguyen Thi Hong Nhan et al 1996; Nguyen Thi Hong Nhan and Nguyen van Hon 1999; Nguyen Xuan Ba, personal observations) The research described in this paper was aimed at the evaluation of the agronomic characteristics and the nutritive value of the above trees as ruminant feeds Materials and methods The experiment was started in September, 2001 in the Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry experimental farm in Hue City The climate is tropical monsoon with a yearly rainfall around 3415cm, most of which occurs from August to January The temperature range is 21 to 29 ºC Air humidity varies in the range 79 to 91% The soil is sandy loam with the pH around 5.5 in the topsoil The above species of shrubs and trees were planted at the same time in September, 2001 The trees were planted from stem cuttings at spacing of 0.2*0.5m for Mulberry and Trichanthera, 0.2*1.0m for Hibiscus and 1*1 for Muntingia calabuara, which was planted by seedlings when their height was about 50 cm The plot size was 25m² for each of the trees The foliages were harvested when the plants reached m height except for "Trung Ca" which was 2.5 m The cutting point was 50 cm above ground level Samples of the foliages (leaves, petioles and young stems) were collected at harvest time and analysed according to the official methods of AOAC (1990) Cell wall components (NDF, ADF) were determined according to Van Soest et al (1991) Rumen degradability was determined according to Ørskov et al (1980) using three fistulated crossbred cattle In vitro gas production method was measured following the method of Menke and Steingass (1988) Rumen degradation and gas production parameters were estimated by fitting the exponential equation of McDonald (1981): P = a + b (1 - e -ct) using the F-curve software running on Microsoft Xcel Results and discussion Harvesting and foliage production Table 1: Planting and harvesting details and foliage production of Hibiscus rosa, Muntingia, Morus alba and Trichanthera Hibis Munt Morus.1 Morus.2 Trichan Tree spacing (m) 0.2 x 1x1 0.2 x 0.5 0.2 x 0.5 0.2 x 0.5 Age of first cutting (months) 10 8 10 Plant height at 1st cutting 101 250 105 139 109 (cm) Biomass yield (kg/ha) 1st cutting 17417 13500 11000 13114 26476 nd cutting 13908 8200 9032 15904 3rd cutting 9700 5100 4700 16304 Mean of cuttings 13675 8100 8949 19561 Cutting interval (weeks) 9 10 Estimated biomass 55 to 60 40 to 50 40 to 45 40 to 45 80 to 100 (tonnes/ha/year) Ratio leaf: stem 3.00 1.50 1.50 1.25 1.35 Morus.1: Morus alba (local variety, “Dau O”); Morus.2: Morus alba (local variety,” Dau Co”) Trichanthera and Hibiscus had higher biomass yield than Mulberry and Muntingia (Table 1) It has been observed that all the above species grow faster in the spring season compared with the winter season in central Vietnam (Nguyen Xuan Ba, unpublished data) There appear to be good prospects for using Trichanthera, Hibiscus and Mulberry as ruminant feeds in the dry season in central Vietnam The Muntingia species is not suitable for repeated cutting Nutritive value The crude protein of the dry matter of the leaves and stems varied from 12 to 23 % (Table 2) The NDF contents were high in all the plants Table 2: Chemical composition of Hibiscus rosa, Muntingia, Morus alba and Trichanthera ( dry matter basis except for DM which is on fresh basis) DM CP CF Ash NDF ADF Ca P Hibis leaves 20.5 18.4 15.6 13.4 30.4 14.2 Hibis leaves and young stems Munt leaves 20.0 17.2 17.9 13.4 34.0 19.0 37.0 16.0 14.1 11.6 24.5 12.6 Munt leaves and young stems Trichan leaves 40.0 14.3 20.2 12.0 34.7 22.6 14.0 12.4 17.4 23.5 44.9 25.9 Trichan leaves and young stems Morus leaves 13.0 12.0 18.0 24.7 45.2 25.9 31.0 24.3 9.5 13.2 32.9 15.6 1.9 0.6 Morus leaves and young stems Morus leaves 28.0 22.6 9.6 11.8 34.5 14.8 1.8 0.6 37.0 22.2 8.8 15.5 31.0 15.0 2.8 0.4 Morus leaves and young stems 35.5 23.1 10.9 13.7 32.4 15.4 2.8 0.5 DM degradability at 24 h was highest for Hibiscus followed by Mulberry with lower values for Trichanthera and Muntingia (Table 3) Table 3: In sacco degradability (mean values and SE) of leaves and stems of Morus alba, Hibiscus rosa, Muntingia and Trichanthera gigantea Incubation time (hr) 16 24 48 72 96 Hibis leaves 34.85.1 78.56.4 92.10.9 93.30.2 93.50.1 93.90.3 Hibis leaves and young stems Munt leaves 44.31.6 55.11.3 71.91.8 89.51.2 91.20.4 91.40.3 30.60.5 33.92.7 39.66.2 67.13.3 75.20.5 79.11.9 Munt leaves and young stems Trichan leaves 32.50.6 36.51.8 46.54.2 63.81.7 68.71.0 70.10.7 36.10.5 41.70.3 48.25.9 79.90.7 84.73.9 91.60.1 Trichan leaves and young stems Morus leaves 37.70.4 43.40.1 46.83.3 79.03.2 83.50.1 88.00.5 47.00.4 49.62.9 79.78.4 88.00.1 88.50.6 89.10.6 Morus leaves and young stems Morus leaves 53.61.4 61.86.4 81.18.1 89.80.4 90.50.2 90.70.3 53.23.5 74.715.1 82.08.7 89.70.6 90.90.2 91.10.1 Morus leaves and young stems 61.710.8 73.314.0 84.56.0 90.30.6 90.80.2 91.00.1 The washing loss (soluble cell contents) was higher for Mulberry than the other species The other degradability parameters are difficult to interpret as apparently there are few differences among the species However, it is known that the nutritive value of Trichanthera is relatively low when fed to goats (Keir et al 1997), whereas Mulberry has a high feeding value for goats (Theng Kouch et al 2003) Table 4: In sacco degradability characteristics of Mulberry, Hibiscus, Muntingia and Trichanthera a b a+b c Washing ED of Lag (%) loss water time insoluble (%) (%) (%/hr) (%) (hr) Hibis leaves -147 241 93.9 0.176 14.1 79.8 6.3 Hibis leaves and young stems Munt leaves 17.4 76.2 93.6 0.050 15.5 78.1 0.0 16.0 77.5 93.5 0.019 28.2 65.3 9.0 Munt leaves and young stems Trichan leaves 18.3 56.5 74.8 0.030 30.1 44.7 7.9 19.4 84.0 100 0.022 34.0 66.0 8.8 Trichan leaves and young 21.7 stems Morus leaves 15.8 77.7 99.4 0.022 36.0 63.4 9.3 75.0 90.8 0.057 40.4 50.4 7.0 Morus leaves and young 26.0 stems 65.8 91.8 0.062 44.1 47.7 5.2 Gas production at 48h was highest for Hibiscus followed by the Mulberry with lowest values for Trichanthera and Muntingia (Table 5) There were no consistencies, however, in the fitted curve parameters, which indicated higher rate constants for Mulberry compared with Hibiscus, yet 48h gas production showed the contrary The unreliability of the fitted curve procedures is shown in Figures and There was a close relationship (R² = 0.70) between the 48h degradation and gas production data (Figure 2) but no relationship (R² = 0.07) between the "a+b" parameters for the two methods (Figure 1) Table 5: Gas production from the fermentation of 200 mg of DM of Mulberry, Hibiscus, Muntingia and Trichanthera Gas production, ml Parameters 24 48 72 96 a+b c Hibis leaves 39.7 46.7 48.8 49.8 49.2 0.075 Hibis leaves and young stems 35.2 41.4 43.4 45.0 44.0 0.075 Munt leaves 15.7 23.8 27.4 29.4 31.7 0.027 Munt leaves and young stems 11.6 19.5 20.0 21.7 22.8 0.033 Trichan leaves 13.2 22.4 24.4 26.1 27.7 0.032 Trichan leaves and young stems 13.5 22.6 24.3 26.0 27.6 0.032 Morus leaves 35.5 39.0 41.1 41.4 40.6 0.104 Morus leaves and young stems 25.4 30.6 31.8 31.8 31.2 0.097 Morus leaves 31.4 36.2 36.7 36.1 36.7 0.086 Morus leaves and young stems 32.2 35.7 38.5 39.2 38.0 0.095 Figure 1: Relationship between a+b Figure 2: Relationship between 48h in sacco DM parameters for in sacco and gas production degradation and gas production at 48h Conclusions and recommendations    Based on this study, it can be concluded that some indigenous trees together with the introduced Trichanthera gigantea can be grown as protein sources for ruminants in central Vietnam These trees grow well in poor quality soil, at high ambient temperature, with low levels of management Morus alba and Hibiscus rosa appear to have a higher nutritive value than Trichanthera gigantea with poorest values for the Muntingia Acknowledgements This research was partially financed by the bilateral SAREC project 2000-2002 References AOAC 1990 Official Methods of Analysis 13th Edition Association of Official Analytical Chemists, Washington DC Keir Brenda, Dinh van Binh, Preston T R and Orskov E R 1997 Nutritive value of leaves from tropical trees and shrubs: Intake, growth and digestibility studies with goats Livestock Research for Rural Development (9) 4: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd9/4/bren942.htm Leng R A 1997 Tree foliage in ruminant nutrition FAO Animal Production and Health Paper Number 139 http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w7448e/w7448e00.htm McDonald I 1981 A revised model for the estimation of protein degradability in the rumen Journal of Agricultural Science (Cambridge) 96: 251-252 Menke K H and Staingass H 1988 Estimation of the energetic feed value obtained from chemical analysis and in vitro gas production using rumen fluid Animal Science and Development 28: 7-55 Nguyen Ngoc Ha and Phan Thi Phan 1995 Vegetative propagation capacities and effect of fertilization on biomass production of Trichanthera gigantea Livestock Research for Rural Development (7) 1: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd7/1/6.htm Nguyen Thi Hong Nhan, Nguyen van Hon, Vo Van Son, Preston T R and Dolberg F 1996 Effect of shade on biomass production and composition of the forage tree Trichanthera Gigantea Livestock Research for Rural Development (8) 2: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd8/2/nhan82.htm Nguyen Thi Hong Nhan and Nguyen van Hon 1999 Supplementing rice by-products with foliage of Trichanthera gigantea in diets of growing and lactating pigs and fattening ducks Livestock Research for Rural Development (11) 3: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd11/3/nhan113.htm Ørskov E R, Howell F D DeB and Mould F 1980 The use of the nylon bag technique for the evaluation of feedstuffs Tropical Animal Production 5: 195 - 213 Rosales M 1997 Trichanthera gigantea (Humboldt & Bonpland.) Nees: A review; Livestock Research for Rural Development (9) 4: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd9/4/mauro942.htm Theng Kouch, Preston T R and Ly J 2003 Studies on utilization of trees and shrubs as the sole feedstuff by growing goats; foliage preferences and nutrient utilization MSc Thesis, MEKARNSLU http://www.mekarn.org/MSc/theses03/Koucexp1.htm Van Soest P J, Robertson J B and Lewis B A 1991 Methods for dietary fiber, neutral detergent fiber and non starch polysaccharides in relation to animal nutrition Journal of Dairy Science 74:3583-3593 Received 25 March 2003; Accepted 16 June 2003 View publication stats ... AOAC 1990 Official Methods of Analysis 13th Edition Association of Official Analytical Chemists, Washington DC Keir Brenda, Dinh van Binh, Preston T R and Orskov E R 1997 Nutritive value of leaves... 5.5 in the topsoil The above species of shrubs and trees were planted at the same time in September, 2001 The trees were planted from stem cuttings at spacing of 0.2*0.5m for Mulberry and Trichanthera,... observations) The research described in this paper was aimed at the evaluation of the agronomic characteristics and the nutritive value of the above trees as ruminant feeds Materials and methods The experiment