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Mulberry, cactus seen good feed for livestock

Our Bureau

CHENNAI, Sept. 18

EVER thought there could be something common between a mulberry tree and a cactus plant? Thought it is as wide as the distance between China, from where the mulberry tree came, and Mexico, the cactus plants' origin?

Change your view, the next time you see them. Animal experts, especially in the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), concur that they have one thing in common - a great untapped potential as a feed for livestock.

FAO's animal production service has found that in terms of digestible nutrients, mulberry produces more than traditional forages. The leaves can be used as the main feed for goats, sheep and rabbits, as supplement replacing concentrates for dairy cattle and as an ingredient in the diets of livestock such as pigs.

Over the centuries, mulberry trees have spread throughout the breadth and width of the globe - being taken to the temperate areas of Europe and North America and tropics of Asia, from sea level to altitudes of 4,000 metres and from humid tropics to semi- arid lands of the Near East.

How was the breakthrough achieved when for over centuries no one had found this? FAO says the breakthrough came in the 1980s when a Costa Rican farmer, who had raised mulberry trees for a failed silk worm project, fed the leaves to his goats.

Impressed by the mulberry's apparent palatability and the performance of his animals, he shared his experience with scientists at the Tropical Agriculture Research Centre, Costa Rica. That lead to the Centre including mulberry in their tree fodder evalua tions. Around the same time, the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, Kenya and the Livestock Production Research Institute, Tanzania also began independent agronomic and animal trials of the tree.

The studies revealed that mulberry could replace grain-based concentrates in lactating cows with excellent results - yields did not decrease significantly even after 75 per cent of the concentrate was replaced with mulberry leaves. Among goats on a diet of King grass, milk production increased along with the amount of mulberry they were fed. At the Costa Rican centre, dairy goats fed exclusively on mulberry and king grass produced an average of four litres of milk a day.

Trials carried out with growing pigs by replacing 15 per cent of a commercial concentrate with mulberry leaves showed that their daily weight gain was 680-750 gm.

The other significant study has shown that dried mulberry leaf meal in the mash of laying hens led to better egg yolk colour and increased egg size and production.

FAO says that the long selection and improvement of mulberry has made it comparable to and often better than many other forage plants in terms of nutritional value and yield of digestible nutrients per unit of area, especially in tropical environments.

Yield, quality and availability worldwide makes mulberry a very important option to intensify livestock systems, especially in places where enough nutrients can be applied to obtained maximum response in biomass production. The greatest immediate impact could be in tropical areas if it is introduced as supplement to lactating cows and as feed to growing calves.

On the other hand, cactus can serve as a strategic fodder in arid and semi-arid areas. The use of cactus dates back to the 19th century when there was extensive trade in it in cattle-raising regions of Texas in the US. Both wild and cultivated cactus are used today in Tunisia, Mexico and South Africa as an emergency forage during drought.

Cactus has been found to be a useful livestock feed as its converts water into dry matter or digestible energy far more efficiently than grasses and legumes, says FAO. The plan also responds well to fertilising, tolerates heavy pruning and can be fed as fresh forage. FAO points out to studies showing a hectare of mature cactus producing up to 100 tonnes of cladodes (leaves) a year in areas with as little as 150 mm rainfall.

However, there is a caution in the use of cactus. It does not provide a balanced diet. It has to be fed along with fibrous stuffs such as straw and hay and supplemented with nitrogen.