EVALUATION OF CHENOPODIUM QUINOA WILLD AS A NEW FORAGE CROP UNDER EGYPTIAN CONDITION

Abstract

The present study was carried out in the SahlEltena, North Sinai Governorate, The Experimental Research farm of Agriculture Botany department and labs of Animal Nutrition, Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University. Al-Fayroz farms for agriculture and animal production, El-Noubaria, El-Behaira governorate, Egypt. The objectives of the present study were to: 5. Evaluate quinoa productivity as new forage under non-saline and saline soil condition. 6. In Vitro evaluation of chinopodium quinoawilld. 7. Investigate effect of replacing alfalfa hay by quinoa on lamb’s performance.

Seeds of Chenopodium quinoaWilld(Hualhuas and CICA) were cultivated at two different locations (non-saline soil and saline soil).At harvest stage, plant from one square meter in the central of each plot wascut at ground level and productivity was evaluated. In vitro evaluation of quinoa hay was applied on two steps: the first was to evaluate the feeding value of Chenopodiumquinoawilld plant as a single source of feed in comparison with clover hay, where the two stage in vitro techniquedeveloped by Tilly and Terry, (1963)was applied and the second was to evaluate effect of substituting clover hay with quinoa hay in ruminant rations, where the one stage in vitro technique developed bySzumacher-Strabelet al., (2002) was applied. The best substituting level of quinoa cultivated under saline soil condition was applied in the growth trial. Twelve growing Barqi male lambs with mean initial live body weight of 24.58 ±1.34 kg were divided into twoexperimental similar groups, six animals each. The animals were randomly assigned to receive one of the two experimental rations for 90 day. Feed intake, nutrients digestibility, rumen fermentation parameters, blood parameters, body weight gain and feed conversion were evaluated. The results are summarized as follows 1. Productivity traits. 1.1. Forage productivity The early maturing cultivar(Hualhues) has forage productivity only at early cutting date under non-saline soil condition at winter cultivation date. No forage yield has been recorded for Hualhues cultivar under all other studied conditions. In contrary to Hualhues, the late maturing cultivar (CICA) produced considerable amount of forage yield under all conditions, excluding early cutting date under saline condition during the winter season. Moreover, CICA cultivar produced higher amount of forage yield during summer season than that at winter season. 1.2. Chemical composition and feeding values Quinoa cultivars plants recorded lower OM content compared to clover hay which ranged from 679.2 to 797.5 versus 899.1 g/kg. On the other hand quinoacultivars recorded higher Ash and crude protein (CP) contents compared to those of clover hay.The crude fiber (CF) content of quinoa plants (Hualhuesand CICA) was close to those of clover hay when harvested at 75 daysafter sawing datewhile the values of CF content at 90 days was higher than those of clover hay for CICA plants (417.5 g/kg Vs 270 g/kg) under non saline condition while the CF of CICA cultivated under salinity condition recorded lower value compared to clover hay (240Vs 270 g/kg).

2. In vitro evaluation of Quinoa hay as feedstuff. 2.1. Evaluation of In Vitro DM and OM disappearance compared to clover hay Thepresent datawere recorded non-significant (P>0.05) differences for IVDMD an IVOMD for quinoa plants (CICA cultivar) cultivated under salinity condition compared to clover hay. 2.2. In vitro evaluationof clover hayreplacingbyquinoa hay. Inclusion of quinoa hay with different level instead of clover hay in ruminant rations had no significant (P>0.05) effect on degraded DM (dDM).Total accumulated gas as ml gas per g of (DM, dDM, OM, dOM, NDF and ADF (TGP/ DM, TGP/ dDM, TGP/OM, TGP/NDF and TGP/ADF) for all experimental rations contained quinoa hay were significantly lower (P<0.01) than those for ration contained clover hay only (control ration).