Received: February 1st, 2021 ; Accepted: April 24th, 2021 ; Published: May 24th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] research aims to study the effect of nutritive value of Musa spp on animal feed.
Residues of banana culture, leaves and stems, could be used as a fibre source for animal feeding,
especially in Banana producing areas, such as Macaronesia Archipelagos, avoiding wastes and
supplementing periods of scarcity of food.
Musa spp were collected and dried at 65 °C in an oven with controlled air circulation. The
pseudostems were divided in three different portions and chemical composition, in vitro
digestibility, and in vitro gas production were determined. Regarding dry matter results, they were
low (16.54% in leaves and 6.54% DM% in pseudostem), crude protein raging 11.25 DM% in
leaves and 7.25% in pseudostem. Concerning fiber values, NDF is higher in leaves (70.07 DM%)
than in pseudostems (52.11 DM%) and ADL is higher in leaves (9.90 DM%) comparing with
pseudostems (6.21 DM%). In vitro DM digestibility is low, (24.42% in leaves and 42.69% in
pseudostem), corroborating the NDF values. Cumulative gas production was recorded at 4, 8, 12,
24, 48, 72, and 96 h of incubation. The results showed that the gas production in leaves was lower
(11.36 mL 200 mg˗1 DM) when compared to pseudostem (23.81 mL 200 mg˗1 DM), being so in
accordance with the digestibility results.
The current study suggested that this by-product can be used in animal feed, however, it will be
necessary to carry out tests to improve its nutritional value, namely with NaOH and/or with Urea,
being a promising strategy for improving ruminant feed efficiency
