BANOIN M.

CALABRO', SERENA

DURSO S.

INFASCELLI, FEDERICO

PICCOLO, VINCENZO

English

Archivio della ricerca - Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tjas20Download by: [University Napoli Federico II] Date: 22 November 2016, At: 04:16Italian Journal of Animal ScienceISSN: (Print) 1828-051X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjas20Nutritional characteristics of forages from NigerS. CalabrÒ, S. D’Urso, M. Banoin, V. Piccolo & F. InfascelliTo cite this article: S. CalabrÒ, S. D’Urso, M. Banoin, V. Piccolo & F. Infascelli (2007) Nutritionalcharacteristics of forages from Niger, Italian Journal of Animal Science, 6:sup1, 271-274To link to this article:  http://dx.doi.org/10.4081/ijas.2007.1s.271Copyright 2007 Taylor & Francis Group LLCPublished online: 15 Mar 2016.Submit your article to this journal Article views: 7View related articles 272 ITAL.J.ANIM.SCI. VOL. 6 (SUPPL. 1), 272-274, 2007Nutritional characteristicsof forages from NigerS. Calabrò1, S. D’Urso1, M. Banoin2, V. Piccolo1, F. Infascelli11 Dipartimento di Scienze Zootecniche e Ispezione degli alimenti. Università di Napoli Federico II, Italy2 Università Abdou Moumouni. Faculté d’Agronomie, Niamey, NigerCorresponding author: Serena Calabrò. Dipartimento di Scienze Zootecniche e Ispezione degli alimen-ti. Facoltà di Medicina Veterinaria, Università di Napoli Federico II. Via F. Delpino 1, 80137 Napoli,Italy - Tel. +39 081 2536284 - Fax: +39 081 292981 - Email: serena.calabro@unina.itABSTRACT: Twelve forages from the arid zone of Niger were evaluated with the IVGPT, that appears to bethe most suitable technique for use in developing countries where resources may be limited. Differences emergedbetween Gramineae and Leguminosae for in vitro fermentation (ie, degradability, gas and volatile fatty acids pro-duction, kinetics). Strong relationships were evidenced between in vitro characteristics and chemical compositionparameters for all the forages.Key words: Forages, Niger, In vitro gas production technique (IVGPT), Fermentation kinetics.INTRODUCTION – In the production systems of the semi-arid areas low quality forages are commonly usedas the basal diet (Wilkins, 2000) and, as a consequence, the nutritional status of ruminants depends mainly on theability of rumen fermentation to yield nutrients such as the short chain fatty acids and microbial biomass (Prestonand Leng, 1987). The forages browsed by the livestock can be classified into two main groups: ephemeral annualplants, which germinate and remain green for only a few weeks after rain, perennial shrubs and tree fodders.Despite their potential as feeds, little research has determined their nutritive value. In vivo evaluation is the bestestimation method of feed’s nutritional value, however it is very laborious and difficult to standardize with brows-ing animals. O the contrary, in vitro methods are less expensive, less time consuming and allow a better control ofexperimental conditions than in vivo experiments. The in vitro gas production technique (IVGPT) appears to be themost suitable method for use in developing countries where resources may be limited (Makkar, 2004). Increasedinterest in use of non-conventional feed resources has led to an increase in use of this technique, since IVGPT canprovide useful data on digestion kinetics of both the soluble and insoluble fractions of feedstuffs. The aim of thepresent research was to evaluate twelve forages from the arid zone of  Niger using the IVGPT.MATERIAL AND METHODS – The forages were: 8 plants (4 Gramineae: Eragrostis tremula, Cenchrus biflorus,Aristida longiflora, Pennicetum pedicellatum and 4 Leguminosae: Zornia glochidiata, Tephrosia bracteolata,Tephrosia purpurea, Alysicarpus ovalifolius), leaves of 3 woody species (Maerua crassifolia, Gliricidia sepium,Combretum aculeatum) and 1 perennial shrub: Pergularia tomentosa. They were harvested in Autumn 2005 in theTillabery district, dried at 70°C for 5 h at the Faculté d’Agronomie de l’Université Abdou Moumouni (Niamey,Niger), and sent to DISCIZIA (Napoli, Italy). The samples, ground to pass a 1 mm screen, were analysed for chem-ical composition (AOAC, 1999) and structural carbohydrates fractions (Van Soest et al., 1991). Rumen liquor for theinoculum was collected at the slaughtering from 2 buffalos (B. bubalis) fed diet with NDF 43 and CP 12 % DM, andimmediately transported to the laboratory. The gas measurements was as per Theodorou (1993) and the gas pro-files were fitted to the Groot et al. (1996) model which allows to estimate the asymptotic value (A, ml/g), the timeafter incubation at which A/2 has been formed (B, h), the time to reach the maximum rate (tmax, h) and the maxi-mum rate (Rmax, ml/h). At the end of the incubation (120 h), the final gas production was related to incubated OM(OMCV, ml/g); the OM degraded (dOM, %) was determined by filtration and ashing. VFA were measured by gaschromatography (Calabrò et al., 2006). The t-test was used to assesses statistically the in vitro characteristics dif-ferences of Leguminosae and Gramineae. Correlation between chemical composition and in vitro parameters werestudied by Proc Corr (SAS, 2000).PROC. 17th NAT. CONGR. ASPA, ALGHERO, ITALYITAL.J.ANIM.SCI. VOL. 6 (SUPPL. 1), 272-274, 2007 273RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS – The plants presented high structural carbohydrates (NDF: 71.1 ± 8.56 %DM) and low crude protein content (CP: 5.49 ± 4.18 % DM), due to the advanced vegetative stage at harvesting(table 1). As expected, the Gramineae resulted richer in NDF (77.4 ± 3.98 % DM) and showed extremely low CPcontent (2.76 ± 1.07 % DM) compared to the Leguminosae (64.8 ± 6.91 and 8.24 ± 4.44 % DM for NDF and CP,respectively); on the other hand, the latter showed higher ADL content (13.4 ± 2.03 vs. 8.10 ± 1.33 % DM).Table 1. Chemical composition of the forages and in vitro fermentation characteristics.CP NDF ADF ADL Ash dOM OMCV A B VFA% DM % ml/g ml/g h mM/gEragrostis tremula 2.70 76.9 47.3 7.30 3.66 54.8 228 239 35.7 70.2Zornia glochidiata 6.78 67.4 56.0 15.6 4.65 42.9 178 185 24.1 49.1Pergularia tomentosa 9.86 41.8 37.1 7.31 9.53 67.5 212 226 19.7 62.8Tephrosia bracteolata 3.65 73.3 57.9 14.5 4.01 34.2 155 164 27.7 56.3Cenchrus biflorus 4.00 75.6 49.8 9.70 7.60 47.8 178 186 33.5 79.7Pennicetum pedicellatum 2.92 74.1 47.0 6.75 10.2 52.7 202 207 35.6 90.5Aristida longiflora 1.40 83.2 53.8 8.64 3.98 55.6 193 227 51.2 70.9Gliricidia sepium 15.0 42.6 33.4 17.1 9.56 56.6 176 176 23.6 87.6Maerua crassifolia 19.3 23.1 17.0 3.50 22.0 82.8 222 233 19.7 72.7Tephrosia purpurea 14.2 58.3 40.4 12.4 5.96 46.0 169 178 27.7 53.4Combretum aculeatum 9.52 33.3 27.4 6.02 8.13 63.4 140 152 30.5 51.1Alysicarpus ovalifolius 8.29 60.1 44.8 11.1 21.3 49.7 147 152 23.0 50.1Leaves of woody plants and shrubs showed a more favourable chemical composition, either for CP (13.4 ± 4.65% DM) and NDF (35.2 ± 9.10 % DM). Only Gliricidia showed very high ADL content (17.1 % DM), probably due tothe lignified stems. Generally, the final gas production (OMCV) resulted similar to the potential value estimated bythe fitting model (A) indicating that the incubation time was sufficient to complete the fermentative process (table1). Excluding Pergularia, Maerua and Combretum, dOM resulted quite low for all the samples in agreement to theirchemical composition. Comparing Gramineae and Leguminosae, the former showed higher dOM (51.8 ± 3.58 vs 43.2± 6.64 %), total gas and VFA production significantly higher and fermentation rate significantly lower; this result,surely due to the high ADL content in the Leguminosae, confirm that also in region with complete different climatecondition, the diversity behaviour between the two families is maintained unchanged.Figure 1. Fermentation rate (ml/g) over time.PROC. 17th NAT. CONGR. ASPA, ALGHERO, ITALY274 ITAL.J.ANIM.SCI. VOL. 6 (SUPPL. 1), 272-274, 2007The fermentation rate profiles (Figure 1) appeared similar for all the forages: the most part of the process occurredin the first 60 h of incubation to complete slowly within the 96 h. The fermentation rate of Pergularia and Maerua,in the first 12 h of incubation was particularly high due to their elevate content in non-structural carbohydrates(NSC: 33.84 and 30.73 % DM). While, Gliricidia NSC (41.60 % DM) fermentation was probably inhibited by its highADL content. The behaviour of Combretum is not easy to explain: in contrast with its favourable chemical compo-sition, this woody specie presented a slow fermentation kinetics, maybe due to the anti-nutritive factors content asfound by Sangaré et al. (2003). The correlation study between the IVGPT parameters and the chemical compositionof the forages confirm the influence of some chemical characteristics of the substrates on the fermentation process.dOM resulted negatively (P<0.01) correlated with all the cell wall fractions (NDF: r = -0.737; ADF: r = -0.856; ADL:r = -0.716). Also the kinetics parameters were affected by the NDF content (B/NDF: r = 0.686, P<0.05; tmax/NDF: r= 0.775, P<0.01; Rmax/NDF: r = -0.619, P<0.05), while for B and tmax the best correlation (P<0.0001) emerges withthe ADF/CP ratio (B: r = 0.906; tmax: r = 0.902). OMCV resulted correlated with total VFA (r = 0.5187; P<0.05). Thelatter, even if not very strong, is very important because testify the regular trend of the fermentation in the closedsystem used. Indeed, it must be underlined that the partitioning factor (mg OM degraded/ml gas produced) rangedbetween 1.46 and 4.77, thus comprised in the interval suggested by Getachew et al. (1998) for conventional feeds(roughages). In conclusion, the IVGPT allowed to better characterize some Nigerin forages for some parameters (i.e.degradability and fermentation kinetics) little known.The authors wish to thank Dr. Angelo Pinelli, Consol of Niger in Napoli (Italy) for having made the experiment pos-sible and Mrs Maria Ferrara for her technical collaboration.REFERENCES – AOAC, Official Methods of Analysis, 1999. Assoc. Offic. Anal. Chem. Internat., Gaithersburg,MD. Calabrò, S., Carone, F., Cutrignelli, M.I., D’Urso, S., Piccolo, G., Tudisco, R., Angelino, G., Infascelli, F., 2006.The effect of haymaking on the neutral detergent soluble fraction of two intercropped forages cut at differentgrowth stages. It. J. Anim. Sci. 5:327-339. Getachew, G., Blümmel, M., Makkar, H.P.S., Becker, K., 1998. In vitrogas measuring techniques for assessment of nutritional quality of feeds: a review. Anim. Feed Sci. Tech. 72:261-281.Groot, J.C.J., Cone, J.W., Williams, B.A., Debersaques, F.M.A., 1996. Multiphasic analysis of gas production kinet-ics for in vitro fermentation of ruminant feedstuff. Anim. Feed Sci. Tech. 64:77-89. Makkar, H.P.S., 2004. Recentadvances in the in vitro gas method for evaluation of nutritional quality of feed resources. In: Assessing quality andsafety of animal feeds. FAO Animal production and health series 160. FAO, Rome, 55-88. Preston, T.R., Leng, R.A.,1987. Matching livestock production systems to available resources. Penambul Books, Armidale, AU. Sangaré, M.,Fernández-Rivera, S., Hiernaux, P., Pandey, V.S., 2003. The effect of supplementation with fresh browse of Ziziphusmauritiana or Combretum aculeatum on feed intake, nitrogen utilization and growth of grazing range sheep. Trop.Anim. Health Prod. 35(5): 65-476. SAS\STAT, 2000. User’s Guide, Version 6.03. SAS Institue Inc., Cary, NC, USA.Theodorou, M.K., 1993. A new laboratory procedure for determining the fermentation kinetics of ruminant feeds.Ciencia e Invest. Agr. 20:332-344. Van Soest, P.J., Robertson, J. B., Lewis, B. A., 1991. Methods for dietary fiber,neutral fiber and non-starch polysaccharides in relation to animal nutrition. J. Dairy Sci. 74:473–481. Wilkins,R.J., 2000. Forages and their role in animal systems. In: Givens, D.I., Owen, E., Axford, R.F., Omed, H.M. Ed. Forageevaluation in ruminant nutrition, CABI Publ., Wallingford, UK, 1–14.

Nutritional characteristics of forages from Niger.

https://www.iris.unina.it/bitstream/11588/108348/1/Calabr%c3%b2%20et%20al%202007%20IJAS.pdf

Nutritional characteristics of forages from Niger.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Archivio della ricerca - Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II