Vol. 10, Special Issue 11 (2021)

Author(s):
Jaishankar N, Thirumalesh T and Ramachandra B

Abstract:
Sugarcane trash (SCT) is the unconventional crop residue almost burnt on the sugarcane field after the harvest of canes due to poor palatability. The concept of feeding complete rations or total mixed ration with use of locally available crop residues seems to be ideal and promising method of improving the utilization of poor quality fibrous crop residues. Therefore, SCT procured, grinded and formulate six complete diets with various proportion of roughage: concentrate (D-1 80:20, D-2 70:30, D-3 60:40, D-4 50:50, D-5 40:60 and D-6 30:70) further subjected for chemical analysis and RIVIGPT to assess the quality of diets based on in vitro gas production kinetics, metabolisable energy (ME), truly digestible organic matter (TDOM), partitioning factor (PF), microbial biomass production (MBP) and efficiency of microbial biomass synthesis (EMBS). The in vitro gas production at 24 h (GP-24, ml/g DM), predicted ME (MJ/kg DM), TDOM, PF, MBP and EMBS for complete diets increased linearly with increase in the proportion of concentrate feed mixture (CFM) from 20 to 60 per cent in the diet. Marginal reduction in PF, MBP and EMBS was observed with 70 per cent of CFM supplemented diet. The optimum microbial biomass indices were observed at D-4 diet with 50% of SCT and marginal reduction over 60% of SCT in diet was observed. Hence, it is recommended that SCT can be incorporated upto the level of 50% in complete diet for efficient utilization. However, in vivo experiment is required to check palatability and to validate in vitro results and to be more informative about unconventional sugarcane trash.