Deribew, Hayelom

Entele, Tefera

Martínez Sáez, Silvio José

English

Portal de Revistas - Universidad de Camagüey

Journal of Animal Production, 30 (2), 74-76, 2018  Technical Note Mineral Contents of some Macro and Micro Elements in Forages Produced on Finca Modelo Farm, Asela, Ethiopia    Silvio José Martínez Sáez*; Hayelom Deribew**; Tefera Entele** * Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz University of Camagüey, Cuba ** Adama Science and Technology University (ASTU), Ethiopia silvio.martinez@reduc.edu.cu INTRODUCTION The lack of some minerals previously brought by water and soil has been caused by constant digging without supplementation. Accordingly, there is a need for adequate supplementation in order to prevent negative balances, and therefore, nutrient deficiency, which is increased over time (McDowell and Arthington, 2005). In Ethiopia, grazing animals subsist mainly on low quality foods, including some graminaceae, very few leguminosae, and harvest residues in less arid areas (Kabaija and Little, 2012).  Some regions of the country are deficient in one or two minerals, such as copper in the Rift Valley re-gion. Other minerals, like sodium, phosphorous, copper, cobalt, zinc, and manganese are scarce, only found in scattered areas. Other areas have also been affected by copper, iron, and manganese toxicity (Alemu, 2012). A change in the feeding paradigms of grazing animals is critical for the sustainable development of a country. The information used to improve cultivation and production, farm management, processing, and com-mercialization techniques based on traditional approaches are goods’ shares in the short run. The public sector (universities) should be in charge of information delivery (FAO, 2017). The Asela Model Agricul-tural Enterprise (AMAE) managed by the Adama Science and Technology University (USTU) is an ex-ample of how the poorest farmers can use the resources of low-input agriculture wisely to prevent soil de-terioration. The company cultivates pastures, which can be sold as seeds or forage at reasonable prices. They include various high quality legume species, like alfalfa and clover. Constant evaluation of forage quality is important to validate these efforts. Determination of phosphorous (P), calcium (Ca), sulfur (S), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), potassium (K), iron (Fe), and copper (Cu) was made through the analysis of samples of graminaceae and legumino-sae cultivated at AMAE. DEVELOPMENT  The reference farm is located near Asela city, 1 800 meters above sea level. The study was made at the end of the rainy season. The green forages were cut as usual, for later consumption by animals (near the stem). Triplicate samples of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), clover (Trifolium repens), common vetch (Vicia sativa L), Rhodes (Chloris gayana), elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum), wheat stalks (Triticum aestivum), and teff (Eragrostis tef), were collected in different AMAE locations chosen at random. The total green mass collected made 5kg, which were dried in the sun for a week. The material was carried to ASTU and then cut with a stainless steel pair of scissors. The possible residues of dust or other contaminating materi-als were removed by rinsing with distilled water; then they were dried in circulating air heating stove, at 80 ± 1 °C for 24 h. Later, they were split in quarters, and 500 g were crushed in a hammer mill, 1 mm Technical Note Mineral Contents of some Macro and Micro Elements in Forages Produced on Finca Modelo Farm, Asela, Ethiopia J o u r n a l  o f  A n i m a l  P r o d u c t i o n ,  3 0  ( 2 ) ,  7 4 - 7 6 ,  2 0 1 8  sieve. They were quartered again, and 100 g were dried at 105 ± 1 °C, until constant weight was achieved. The material was stored in air-tight plastic jars, and 5 g of each replication were incinerated in China melt-ing pots, at 525 ± 5 ºC, in mufla oven with digital temperature control. The ashes were dissolved in 1 +3 pure hydrochloric acid solution for analysis by warm digestion up to humid salts. The salts were lixiviated in 100 ml volumetric flasks using filter paper. Phosphorous and iron were determined by colorimetric methods (molybdovanadate and o-phenatroline, respectively). Sulfur was determined using the same instrument (UV-Vis), by barium sulfate turbidity, at 540 nm. Sodium and potassium were determined by air/butane-propane flame photometry. Magnesium, calcium, and copper were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry, with air-acetylene flame. All the analytical methods were made through standard procedures (ASTM, 2014). Calculations and statistical analyses were made with Microsoft Excel, 2007. The graminaceae-leguminosae comparison (Table 1) was made using one-tailed Student-T test. Only phosphorous was far from meeting the set requirements, though copper was low. The levels of so-dium suggested its use only as control of consumption of the mineral supplement. The tenor of phosphorous, essential for ruminant nutrition, was below the reports made by Suttle (2010), which might indicate a declining trend due to insufficient soil supplementation, especially for graminaceae (Table 2). The main deficiencies were evident in the graminaceae used by local farmers, particularly in the dry sea-son: teff and wheat hay, and elephant grass. The comparison between the element means showed that their concentrations were lower in graminaceae than in leguminosae (except for S). This situation was dif-ferent from the results of Martínez et al (2007), in Camagüey, Cuba. In this study, the legume species used came from cultivated and organically supplemented pastures, whereas the graminaceae were collected from crop residues or long cultivated elephant grass plantations in these soils. In Cuba, all the samples were collected in the fields. CONCLUSIONS All the forage produced on Finca Modelo farm generally met the requirements for grazing ruminants, except for phosphorous. Most deficiencies were observed in the more commonly used graminaceae. Be-cause of its lower costs and tenor, sodium may be used to control feedstuff consumption, particularly for P supplementation. REFERENCES ALEMU, Y. (2012). Nutrition and Feeding of Sheep and Goats. Sheep and Goat Production Handbook for Ethiopia. Recuperado el 12 de junio de 2013, de www.esgpip.com/handbookchapter7.html. ASTM (2014). American Society for Testing and Materials. Standard Test Methods for Laboratory Determination of Water (Moisture) Content of Soil and Rock by Mass, Book of Standards. New York, EE.UU.: John Wiley &Sons, Ltd. FAO (2017). Política de desarrollo agrícola: conceptos y principios. Retrieved on April 23, 2017, from http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5673s/y567 3s1o.htm. KABAIJA, E. y LITTLE, D. A. (2012). Nutrient Quality of Forages in Ethiopia with Particular Reference to Mineral Elements. Retrieved on December 1, 2014, from www.fao.org/wairdocs / ILRI/x549E/x5491e18.htm. MARTÍNEZ, S.; GUEVARA, R.; CURBELO, L.; PEDRAZA, R. e HIDALGO, D. (2007). Contenidos minerales de pastos más utilizados por rebaños vacunos lecheros al oeste de la ciudad de Camagüey, Cuba.  MCDOWELL, L. y ARTHINGTON, R. (2005). Minerales para rumiantes en pastoreo en regiones tropicales. Gaines-ville, EE.UU.: Centro de Agricultura Tropical, Universidad de Florida. SUTTLE, N. F. (2010). Mineral nutrion of livestock. Retrieved on April 1, 2014, from www.ucv.ve/fileadmin/Minerals_in Animal Nutrition.pdf.  Received: 7-12-2017 Accepted: 7-20-2017     Table 1. Tenor of minerals studied (range) and their requirements, according to McDowell and Arthington (2005) Minerals studied Tenor in analyzed forages Requirements of grazing ruminants Calcium (g/kg DM) 2.63-10.12 1.4-11.0 Phosphorous (g/kg DM) 0.33-1.97 0.9-3.8 Magnesium (g/kg DM) 1.23-4.8 0.9-2.2 Potassium (g/kg DM) 14.32-19.44 8-10 Sodium (g/kg DM) 0.23-1.1 0.7-4 Sulfur (g/kg DM) 1.4-7.5 1.5-2.0 Iron (g/kg DM) 14-264 30-50 Copper (g/kg DM) 2.05-6.38 4-14    Table 2 Comparison between leguminosae and graminaceae  Leguminosae Graminaceae Sig. P 1.46 ± 0.28 0.76 ± 0.30 * Ca 8.55 ± 0.94 3.52 ± 0.56 * S 3.84 ± 2.17 2.48 ± 0.77  Mg 4.00 ± 0.57 1.87 ± 0.41 * Na 1.03 ± 0.08 0.57 ± 0.16 * K 18.2 ± 0.59 16.8 ± 1.17 * Fe 190 ± 87 37.5 ± 23 * Cu 5.53 ± 58 3.02 ± 0.67 * (*) T-test for mean comparison (α=0.05)   

Mineral Contents of some Macro and Micro Elements in Forages Produced on Finca Modelo Farm, Asela, Ethiopia

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Mineral Contents of some Macro and Micro Elements in Forages Produced on Finca Modelo Farm, Asela, Ethiopia

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