Suchitra et al., 2008. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 20 (Suppl.)

Two, ruminally fistulated crossbred beef steers of 400±15 kg BW were used to evaluate the nutritive value of local plants by using the in sacco nylon bag technique. A Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used to determine ruminal degradability of DM and OM, and their effects on rumen ecology in cattle. The investigation was carried out with eleven local plants, namely: mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) peel of fruit (MSP), guava (Psidium guajava) leaf (GVL), siam neem tree (Azadirachta indica) leaf (SNTL), sesbania (Sesbania grandoflora) leaf (SBNL), coral leaf (Eritrina variegate) (CRL), Bai Yanang (Tiliacora triandra) (BY), cassava hay (Manihot esculenta, Crantz) (CH), bitter cucumber (Mormormdica charantia) fruit (BCF), banana (Musa sapientum) leaf (BNL), mulberry (Morus indica) leaf (MBL), and Plia farn (Macropanax dispermus Ktze) leaf (PFL). Approximately 5 g of feed samples were weighed into duplicated nylon bags (38 µm pore size) and incubated ruminally at 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, and 72 h-post feeding. The results showed that the mean values of ruminal pH (6.6) and temperature (38.8 ºC) were not different (P>0.05) among different times of incubation. The condensed tannins (CT), and crude saponin (CS) values of local plants were 15.8, 9.8 % for MSP, 14.8, 2.8 % for GVL, 11.0, 2.5 % for SNTL, 4.0, 2.0 % for SBNL, 2.3, 1.8 % for CRL, 2.2, 1.7 % for CH, 2.2, 1.3 % for BY, 2.1, 4.1 % for BCF, 2.0, 1.4 % for PFL, 1.7, 1.3 % for BNL, and 1.6, 2.3 % for MBL, respectively. The highest and lowest of the potential degradability (a+b), and effective degradability of DM and OM of feed sources for PFL and MSP were 97 and 72.3, 98.1 and 73.2, 58.6 and 46.7 and 59.1 and 45.7 %, respectively. It was also shown that PFL had a higher (p<0.01) degradability in the rumen, while MSP had the lowest, thus resulting in higher rumen degradable and undegradable roughage sources, respectively. Based on these results PFL can be used efficiently in the rumen and MSP as a rumen by-pass protein due to its CT and CS contents.