BAI Director Dr. Jose Q. Molina said this non leguminous specie, which was brought in the country from Columbia (Latin America) in 1997, grows well with repeated cutting and without fertilizers. It was started in the Philippines with only two cuttings and has adapted very well to local conditions.
The leaves are succulent with high nutritive value and are palatable. It can be planted to a wide range of soil types and elevations of up to 1,800 meters above sea level and at low densities as 6,700 cuttings per hectare.
Molina said it grows easily between plantation crops and produces 40 to 60 tons per hectare of fresh leaves.
The BAI has experimented using this as feeds for hog farms, which came out with creditable results and is now in the process of promoting it for small ruminant farms as well, he added.
The leaves of trichantera gigantean is a potential source of protein, varying from 18-22 percent in crude protein form from dry matter form and apparently most of this protein is real protein with good amino acid balance. Nutritional analysis (Rosales et al, 1989) showed that the leaves also contained: either extract, 2.8 percent; crude fiber, 13.4 percent; ash, 19.7 percent, moisture, 9.6 percent and NFE, 37 percent.
Molina said propagation may be done through cuttings. The cutting can be grown either in a plastic bag and can be transferred in the field after three months or it can be planted directly to the prepared field. Harvest is six months after every planting.
Subsequent cutting can be done at an interval of 90 days or three months and the cutting height is about a meter above the ground.
In the experiment on pigs, this fodder can be fed either in fresh form or processed into leaf meal.
Trichantera leaves can substitute about 20 to 30 percent of the commercial growing-finishing feed diet of the pigs, he said.
BAI experiments also showed that this trichantera can also be fed to poultry such as ducks (up to 10 percent of its diet); laying hens and quails (10 percent); large ruminants; small ruminants and rabbits.
When fed with trichantera, animal meat was found to be moderately juicy and slightly tender and is generally acceptable. This was the finding of carcass and sensory evaluation of slaughtered animals fed with this fodder, Molina said.
Using fresh trichantera leaves to grower-finisher diets enables a farmer to save up to P334 from feeds for 20 percent replacement and P777 with 30 percent replacement to commercial ration with comparable results of ADG (average daily gain) and FCR (feed conversion ratio) to full commercial ration.