Accurate digestibility coefficients for protein, energy, and lipid are needed by feed formulators to optimize diets to meet nutritional requirements and to substitute ingredients cost‐effectively. Of particular interest is protein, which accounts for the majority of shrimp feed content and expense. The current study evaluated seven cottonseed meal and protein products. Most of the samples were derived from a glandless cotton variety that lacks significant levels of the antinutritive compound, gossypol. The various protein fractions were evaluated for apparent crude protein, crude lipid, and energy digestibility when fed to juvenile Pacific White Shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei. Apparent energy digestibility for the protein fractions derived from the glandless seed ranged from 76.7% for ground kernels to 94.6% for protein isolate, and these values were greater than the value obtained for the commercial meal that contained gossypol (64%). Apparent protein digestibility for the six glandless‐cotton‐based samples varied from 72.3% for the ground full‐fat kernels to 94.1% for the protein isolate, and these values were mostly higher than the value obtained for the commercial meal (82.3%). The high apparent digestibility values demonstrate that low‐gossypol cottonseed protein products may be useful as a cost‐effective replacement for more expensive protein sources in L. vannamei diets.
The current study evaluated transgenic cotton lines with normal levels of gossypol/terpenoids in the vegetative and floral tissues, but with ultra-low gossypol in the seeds as a replacement for glandless cottonseed meal (GCSM) and fishmeal. A 64-day growth trial evaluated the ability of cottonseed meals from a natural glandless cotton variety/ mutant, two transgenic Ultra-low Gossypol Cottonseed (ULGCS) lines, a non-transgenic parental control and a commercial variety, to replace 355 g kg À1 fishmeal in a diet containing 350 g kg À1 crude protein. Juvenile Litopenaeus vannamei (1.48 AE 0.29 g) were stocked (40 shrimp m À3 ) with six replicates. No significant differences were found between all formulated diets in terms of final weight, survival and feed conversion ratio. The commercial cottonseed variety displayed a significantly lower feed efficiency ratio and protein efficiency ratio than one of the ULGCS diets. These results suggest that GCSM and/or transgenic UL-GCS meals can be used to replace fishmeal in commercial shrimp diets.
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