Background:

Studies of the nutritional value of Dichrostachys cinerea leaf-petioles are insufficient to define sample drying in various in vitro digestibility studies. The aim of this research was to calculate in vitro gas production, and provide better fit model parameters, as indicators of foliage digestibility from two different plant heights, using two drying methods.

Methods:

The samples were collected at random, by hand, from 10 different trees (1 m and 2 m high), during the dry season, simulating total plant leaf browsing conditions. Each sample was divided in two for the different drying treatments (room temperature for approximately 96 h, and 55 ºC in a stove), to constant weight. The influence of plant height and drying temperature on the volumes of in vitro gas produced at 24, 48, and 72 h, in cattle feces, were evaluated through simple analysis of variance of factor combinations.

Results:

In vitro gas production from 2 m high plant leaf-petioles dried at 55 °C was significantly lower than the rest of the temperature-height combinations evaluated.

Conclusions:

The better fit parameters of the equations for in vitro gas production from Dichrostachys cirenea leaf-petioles showed a potential for ruminant nutrition due to the high nutritional values, similar to several forage shrub-like species of leguminosae.