NUTRITIVE VALUES OF EIGHT GENOTYPES OF COWPEA WHOLE PLANTS AS FODDER

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate eight cowpea genotypes as animal feed, by estimating the chemical composition, dry matter DM and organic matter OM degradability and relative feed value RFV of the whole plant. For degradability study, samples were incubated in rumen for 4,8,16,24,48,72 and 96 hrs using fistulated calves. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replicates. Data were analyzed using general linear model. Significant variations (p<0.05) were observed in the chemical composition. CP and ash content were relatively high. The highest values (19.24% and 12.23%) of CP and ash respectively, were obtained for genotype HSD2976. CF, NDF and ADF were high in most genotypes, 44.34%, 67.17% and 50.02% respectively, which resulted in low RFV. Generally RFVs were within the fair level, ranged from 70.19 to 80.51 this might be due to fully mature plants having high level of fiber. However according to RFV, cowpea genotypes HSD2966 ranked first and genotype HSD5132 had a high (p<0.05) DM and OM degradability 73% and 71% respectively, in spite of high level of fiber, cowpea fodder can maintain animal nutrition considering the high level of protein and relatively high degradability.