跳至主要内容

Potential Use of Multipurpose Paulownia elongate Tree as an Animal Feed Resource

Paulownia elongata (family Paulowniaceae) is economically important as a short-rotation tree bioenergy crop. As a fast-growing tree, Paulownia has also been suggested as a bioenergy crop, potentially useful for both carbon sequestration or as a biomass source for conversion to transportation fuel. In addition to its usefulness as wood and related industrial products, the fruits, wood, bark, roots, seeds, leaves, and flowers of Paulownia have also been reported to have a number of useful medicinal properties. The fallen leaves of Paulownia improve soil quality by increasing organic matter and the nectariferous flowers are rich source of nutritious honey. However, the potential use of Paulownia foliage as livestock fodder has thus far received less attention. 

In this study, nutritional properties of Paulownia elongata leaves collected at monthly intervals from Paulownia Demonstration Plot, Fort Valley State University (FVSU), Fort Valley, Georgia, USA, from April to November, 2011, were studied. The leaves were dried and analyzed for crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), acid detergent lignin (ADL), fat, gross energy, and ash content.

Paulownia trees showed a steady increase in diameter at breast height (DBH) with respect to overall tree height over a three-year period in the timber plot. Analysis of data obtained for P. elongata showed active growth leading to increase in height as well as girth. The CP, NDF, ADF, ADL, fat and ash content ranged from 14% - 23%, 29% - 55%, 18% - 42%, 10% - 22%, 2% - 4%, and 6% - 9%, respectively, indicating that Paulownia leaves have potential as a feed resource for livestock. Forage potential research was followed up by developing protocols to manufacture feed pellets with 75% and 95% leaf component and assessing their physical properties.

In conclusion, the results suggest that Paulownia leaves and other parts are rich in medicinal components and antioxidant activity that may impart additional health benefits to the animal.  More work (feeding/browsing trials) with this multipurpose tree is warranted to determine its palatability and nutritional potential for grazing/browsing livestock.


Article by Whitley Marshay Stewart, et al, from Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, GA, USA.

Full access: http://mrw.so/4GDkes

Image by Paco Garin, from Flickr-cc.

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Does Immigration Promote the Investment of the Monopolistic Firm?

In the present paper, we examine the effect of increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth on the optimal timing of investment of a firm that has a monopolistic power over the labor market. It is revealed that when the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is more than a threshold level, increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth accelerates the optimal timing of firms’ investment and enhances the economic growth, even if the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is formulated by the geometric Brownian motion, which is in sharp contrast to the standard result that an increase in the uncertainty postpones the optimal timing. With an increase in the immigrants over the past ten years, workforces in the host countries have been growing significantly to the extent that the immigrants represent 70% of the increase in the workforce in Europe, and 47% in the United States as OECD indicates. In the present paper, we attempted to investigate the effect of increased uncertainty caused by the growi...
发表评论
阅读全文

Education Policy Implementation: A Mechanism for Enhancing Primary Education Development in Zanzibar

Education is one of the fundamental rights of individuals; therefore, the government of a country needs to develop and strengthen educational policy and quality as well as to ensure that everyone has equal access to basic education. The improvement of access and quality of education in the world is becoming as an essential factor in development, whereas the basic education (primary school), is acknowledged as a foundation of the higher educational development for every country. To fulfill this goal, governments introduce several policies and procedures; however, it requires some reforms and participation from the politician, policymakers, and other stakeholders to re-examine educational policy so that it can lead to multiplication and betterment of the reforms. Educational reforms actually focus on accountability. A positive educational development and reform is very challenging and needs more effort and strategy on how to use and utilize the resources effectively as such it can achie...
发表评论
阅读全文

Electron Spin and Proton Spin in the Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Like Atomic Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52202#.VIj7tMnQrzE Author(s) Stanisław Olszewski * Affiliation(s) Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland . ABSTRACT The mechanical angular momentum and magnetic moment of the electron and proton spin have been calculated semiclassically with the aid of the uncertainty principle for energy and time. The spin effects of both kinds of the elementary particles can be expressed in terms of similar formulae. The quantization of the spin motion has been done on the basis of the old quantum theory. It gives a quantum number n = 1/2 as the index of the spin state acceptable for both the electron and proton ...
发表评论
阅读全文