Organic Soybean Meal in Diet for Nile Tilapia

Abstract

Aiming to assess organic soybean meal (OSM) for Nile tilapia, two studies were carried out: Study I - digestibility of OSM compared to conventional soybean meal (CSM) for Nile tilapia; and Study II - effect of OSM and CSM, supplemented or not with fish meal (FM) on the performance of Nile tilapia fingerlings. The apparent digestibility coefficients of the protein were 88.24 and 88.10%, resulting in 39.91 and 39.87% digestible protein for OSM and CSM, respectively. The apparent digestibility coefficients of energy were 75.92 and 70.48%, resulting in 3579.46 and 3141.44 kcal kg-1 of digestible energy for OSM and CSM, respectively. The diet containing CSM+FM presented the best results for final weight and weight gain. However, the highest levels of crude protein in the fish carcass were observed in the animals fed with the OSM + FM diet. The OSM diet presented the best results for total protein and albumin in the blood. The OSM diet has good apparent digestibility coefficients and its use in tilapia feeding presents a satisfactory productive performance and a higher deposition of protein in the carcass when supplemented with 20% of fish meal.