Author : Medrano, William C.

Summary : Two feeding trials and an in vivo digestibility trial using sheep were conducted to evaluate the feeding value of gliricidia in combination with rice straw. In Experiment 1, local and foreign gliricidia accessions were analyzed for their chemical composition and toxic factors. The toxicity study (Experiment 2) involved 54 albino rats weighing 180-200 g and administered orally with gliricidia extract to determine the lethal dose 50. Feeding trials utilized 20 upgraded weanling sheep. In Experiment 3, ad libitum amount of rice straw was supplemented with dry or fresh gliricidia and/or concentrate at 0.6 percent and 0.3 percent body weight (BW, dry matter (DM) basis). In Experiment 4, gliricidia was fed at 0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 percent of the ration with rice straw and 10 percent setaria. A separate digestibility study (Experiment 5) was done using 100, 60, 40, 20, and 0 percent gliricidia levels with rice straw. The feeding experiments followed the Randomized Complete Block Design while the digestibility study used a 5 x 5 Latin Square Design. In Experiment 1, local gliricidia accessions contained higher crude protein (CP, 23.19 vs. 22.46 percent), higher lignin (16.24 vs. 9.33 percent) but lower cell wall component (38.99 vs. 42.19 percent) than the of foreign ones. In fresh leaves, coumarin content was higher in local than in foreign ones (2.37 vs 0.83) but was undetectable in dry leaves. Lethal dose 50 of crude gliricidia extract in rats was computed at 128.103 g/kg body weight (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, there were no significant differences among treatments in terms of daily dry matter intake (DDMI), average daily gain (ADG) and feed efficiency (FE). Crude protein intake was significantly higher (P<0.01) at 0.6 percent BW either as fresh or dried gliricidia than at 0.3 percent BW as fresh and the 0.6 percent BW concentrate (Control). In Experiment 4, sheep fed with 80 percent gliricidia + 10 percent setaria + 10 percent rice straw had significantly higher (P0<.01) ADG and DDMI than the other.