The nutritive value of five lots of rapeseed meal (RSM) from Brassica campestris or B. napus with different levels of glucosinolates (GL) was investigated in a digestibility and balance trial with a 5 x 5 Latin square design and in a growth trial with 140 growing-finishing pigs. The RSM’s were prepared from the cultivars: Span-Torch, Sigga, Gulliver and Topas, and a heat-treated RSM was also studied, their total GL contents (µmol/g defatted meal) being 42, 11, 98, 27 and 8, respectively. Cv. Sigga had yellow hulls and a lower ADF content than the other cultivars. The hat-treated RSM had a reduced lysine content. There were no significant (P > 0.05) differences in organic matter or crude protein digestibilities between the RSM’s with different GL levels or the RSM’s prepared from B. campestris and B. napus, when RSM was used as the only protein supplement at a level of 20—25 % in a barley-based diet. Heat treatment reduced the organic matter and crude protein digestibilities (P 0.05). In the growth trial supplementation with HGL-RSM Gulliver (14 % in diet) caused some palatability problems and this led to reduced performance (P 0.05). The carcass quality was similar in all the groups. The weight of the thyroid gland was higher in the pigs receiving RSM than in the SBM controls, by 6—57 % (P < 0.05). In the present study a fairly high RSM supplements from cultivars with a moderate high GL content could be used in the diet of growing pigs without impairing their performance, when the diet was formulated on the basis of the digestible nutrients of RSM. Heat-treated RSM, with protein of low rumen degradability, is of poor value in pig feeding due to the low digestibility and availability of its protein
