Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of season on the chemical composition of Aspilia Africana leaf over a 12-month period. Biomass yield, proximate and mineral compositions were analyzed. Data collected were subjected to ANOVA in a completely randomized design using SAS software package. Post hoc analysis was conducted at 5% significance using the Duncan multiple range test. Five seasons (late dry, early rainy, peak rainy, late rainy and early dry) and three stages of plant maturity (growing, blooming and aging) were identified. Results showed no effect (p>0.05) of season on the proximate composition (except for moisture and crude ash) and fibre fractions of Aspilia Africana leaf but mineral concentrations were influenced (p<0.05) by season. Crude protein and ash contents were higher during the rainy season but declined with the inception of the dry season while, crude fibre and its fractions were higher during the dry season. Calcium, zinc and phosphorus concentrations were highest during the peak rainy season then decline gradually as dry season progressed. Correlation result showed that an increased biomass yield led to increased (p<0.05) crude protein content with decreased crude fat, moisture and ash contents. Though biomass yield was higher between the late rainy and early dry seasons, results showed that there was no temporal variations in the nutrient composition of Aspilia Africana leaf during the 12-month study. Therefore, Aspilia Africana plant could be a valuable feed resource for all year fodder production.

Keywords:

Fodder, plant yield, proximate composition, tropical weed,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.