Nutritional evaluation of leaves from some major fodder trees cultivated in the hills of Nepal

Leaves from some major and important fodder trees cultivated by the farmers for feeding ruminants in the hills of Nepal were studied for proximate com ponents, detergent fibers, macro and trace minerals, metabolizable energy ( ME), digestibility and anti-nutrients. Dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and ash content of fodder tree leaves ranged between 22 and 53, 11 and 22, 5 and 17%, respectively. Acid detergent fiber (20-54%) and lignin (6-35%) c ontents were high but cellulose (13-33%) and hemicellulose (1-31%) contents low. Most of the tree fodder leaves contained Ca > 1%, K > 1% and Mg > 0.2 5%, but Na content in majority of them was low, <0.06%. Phosphorus was most ly within the range of 0.16-0.40%. Trace mineral contents, Mn, Fe, Zn and C u were > 27, > 15, > 100 and < 26 mg/kg, respectively, on DM basis. Neutral cellulase digestibility (NCD) and organic matter digestibility (OMD) of th e leaves varied greatly among the species with values 41-83 and 49-82%, res pectively. Degradability of DM (36-80%) and protein (40-88%) also varied gr eatly among the species studied. ME content was found to be within the rang e of 8-13 MJ/kg DM. Lignin content was high in most of the species with val ues more than 10% on DM basis. Tannin content in most of the species was mo re than 1%, with highest values (> 12%) found in the genus Terminalia. Crit ical examination of the importance of various species on the basis of labor atory analyses has been made and relevance to ruminant nutrition in Nepal h as been discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.