Assessment of the nutritive value of leaves of tropical fodder trees and byproducts for ruminants as indicated by in vitro gas production and chemical analysis

摘要

The diversity of potentially useful legumes, shrubs and fodder trees for ruminant nutrition in silvopastoral systems is extremely large in the tropics and this is greatly increased when by-products (e.g. crop residues and agro-industrial by-products)are included. Integrated production systems combining both crop and livestock husbandry produces over 80 % of the livestock in the tropics (Jayasuriya, 1993). Therefore, the legumes trees, shrubs, fodder trees and by-products are a valuable feed resourceand require intensive investigation. The use of animal response (digestibility, intake, etc.) to attempt to rank feedstuffs is a traditional nutrition research tool. However, these techniques are expensive in terms of feed, labour, time and the facilities required. For more rapid and less expensive initial screening of potential feeds and by-products, in vitro methods are preferable.