GENETIC-VARIATION IN THE NUTRITIVE-VALUE OF GLIRICIDIA-SEPIUM - 2 - LEAF CHEMICAL-COMPOSITION AND FERMENTABILITY BY AN IN-VITRO GAS-PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE
Cd. Wood et al., GENETIC-VARIATION IN THE NUTRITIVE-VALUE OF GLIRICIDIA-SEPIUM - 2 - LEAF CHEMICAL-COMPOSITION AND FERMENTABILITY BY AN IN-VITRO GAS-PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE, Animal feed science and technology, 75(2), 1998, pp. 125-143
Five Gliricidia sepium provenances, comprising three central American
native populations and two land races, were grown at five sites. Repli
cated leaf samples were evaluated by an in vitro gas production techni
que, estimation of crude protein (CP), acid detergent fibre (ADF), neu
tral detergent fibre (NDF) and coumarin content. Differences between p
rovenances in fermentation characteristics generally achieved statisti
cal significance (p<0.05) at all five sites, but were small (13% range
or less). Significant differences (p<0.05) were found between samples
of young and old leaves, leaves from sunny and shady plots and betwee
n air-dried and freeze-dried samples. Differences due to site were hig
hly significant for all fermentation characteristics, and much greater
than differences due to provenance. The compositional analyses showed
highly significant genetic variation in CP and ADF, but not in NDF or
coumarin levels. Again, the range of values was small (<10%), and was
dwarfed by site-related effects. The reasons for the site related dif
ferences were not identified. The narrow range of provenance means for
all the traits measured, compared with the considerable site-related
variability, suggested that intraspecific variation in nutritive value
of these five provenances of Gliricidia sepium was unlikely to be of
great practical importance to livestock keepers. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci
ence B.V.