Evaluation of eleven Mexican cultivars of prickly pear cactus trees for possibly utilization as animal fed: in vitro gas production

Abstract

In production systems of prickly pear fruit and prickly pear cactus, significant amounts of pruned material, which could be used as an ingredient in animal feeding, is generated. The aim of this study was to measure the nutrient content, fermentation kinetics and in vitro digestibility of eleven cultivars of cladodes of prickly pear cactus. The fermentation was measured indirectly using the gas production technique, where 500 mg of DM substrate (prickly pear cactus cultivars) were placed in amber glass flasks of 125 mL with 90 mL of ruminal inoculum under a continuous flow of CO 2 . Flasks were hermetically wrapped up with a rubber stopper and a metal ring, and were placed in a water bath at 39°C. The fermentation gas pressure was measured using a monometer at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 32, 38, 50 and 72 h incubation. Results show that the chemical composition ranged between (g kg -1 DM): 64 and 160 g kg -1 dry matter (DM), 137-293 g kg -1 DM ash, 52-101 g kg -1 DM crude protein, 3-22 g kg -1 DM ether extract, 251-393 neutral detergent fiber and 132-192 acid detergent fiber. The gas volume was different (p \ 0.05) among cultivars, with the Red Vigor cultivar having the largest volume at 378 mL g -1 DM. The highest volume of gas was produced during the first 24 h in on average 67 % of the total produced. The in vitro DM digestibility displayed values of up to 82 % in the Roja Pelota cultivar. It can be concluded that the cladodes of prickly pear cactus from different cultivars can be used in animal feed for its good rumen fermentation characteristics.

Nutritional Quality of Opuntia ssp. at Different Phenological Stages: Implications for Forage Purposes

“…The CP contents observed in this research (56.06 to 73.92 g.kg -1 DM) were higher than those reported by Siqueira et al (2018) (41.0 g.kg -1 DM) and Conceiç ã o et al (2018) (55.5 g.kg -1 DM). These variations are attributed to soil moisture and fertility (Vazquez-Mendoza et al, 2017), and are directly related to the N content in cladodes (Figure 2a), as this element is one of the components of the protein. This means that an adequate supply of N for the plant is crucial to increase the concentration of CP in the cladodes.…”

“…Forage cactus are an important resource for semiarid regions and has been widely studied from a nutritional point of view (Cordova-Torres et al, 2015;Vazquez-Mendoza et al, 2017;Pessoa et al, 2020). However, some aspects need a better understanding, such as nutritional quality, especially mineral composition of cladodes as a function of species/genotype and plant development stage.…”

Open source disease analysis system of cactus by artificial intelligence and image processing

“…First, as many cacti species are threatened [29] this technique can be applied to remote monitoring of cacti (e.g. a drone with camera) for both conservation [30] as well as large-scale cactus farms for human food [31] or fodder [32] to quickly evaluate cactus disease. In addition, cactus plants are well known to survive in low-water environments, but some species can also survive cold temperatures and the winter [33], which makes them a potential source of alternative food for major global catastrophic risks that substantially reduce available rainfall [34,35].…”

Nutritive value of cactus pear silages for finishing lambs

“…Dry matter concentration was greater (P<0.05) in the control (with not silage, NSD) diet (Table 4). When cladode silage or cladode-fruit silage were included, the ash content is higher (P<0.05) compared to the control diet due to the fact that the cladodes have a high content in minerals (around 26% of the DM) (Azócar, 2002;Vazquez-Mendoza et al, 2016). However, the cladode-fruit silage diet presented lower ash content (P<0.05) compared to the cladode silage diet, because the ash content in the cactus pear fruit is lower (around 4% of the DM; Chiteva and Wairagu, 2013;.…”