EVALUATION OF SELECTED CEREAL STOVER HAYS FOR NUTRIENT COMPOSITION AND IN VITRO GAS PRODUCTION IN WUKARI, NIGERIA

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine the nutrient composition and in vitro gas production from six (6) cereal stovers hays in Teaching and Research Farm of Federal University, Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria. Fresh stovers of maize, sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, rice and acha were harvested, chopped and air-dried in late October and early November, 2018. The experimental design was Completely Randomised Design (CRD) and each treatment (each stover) was replicated three times. The in vitro gas production was carried out in laboratory using standard technique. The results showed that DM, CP, CF, NFE, EE, Ash, OM, CHO and fibre fractions (NDF, ADF, ADL),cellulose and hemicellulose of the selected cereal stovers hay were significantly (P < 0.05) different from each other except for ether extract (EE) that was similar across the treatments. Sorghum stover hay (T3) had the highest DM value of 92.69% while T1 had the highest CP contents of 11.78% CP. However, T6 had the highest CF value (34.00%) of all the selected cereal stovers. The in vitro gas production parameters such as CH4, TGV, FE, OMD, (DMD, SCFA and ME varied significantly (P < 0.05) across the treatments. The TGV was highest (24.67ml) in T2 (finger millet stover) and least (16.67ml) in T3 (sorghum stover). The results of this study indicated that T1 (rice stover hay) had over all best nutrient composition and in vitro gas production assessment.