Deutscher Tropentag, October 9 - 11, 2002 in Kassel-Witzenhausen "Challenges to Organic Farming and Sustainable Land Use in the Tropics and Subtropics"

Inclusion of Several Indonesian Medicinal Plants to in vitro Rumen Fermentation and Their Effects on Microbial Population Structure and Fermentation Products

¹University of Hohenheim, Institute for Animal Production in the Tropics and Subtropics, Germany
²International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Austria

Abstract

There are thousands of native or naturalised plants in Indonesia that are used as herbal medicine for centuries. Utilization of medicinal plants to livestock especially in villages have also been practised, but very limited information is available on the effect of these plants on rumen fermentation. The aim of this experiment was to study the effect of inclusion of four medicinal plants; Morinda citrifolia (Mengkudu) fruit, Nothopanax scutellarium (Mangkokan) leaves, Melia azedarach (Mindi) leaves and Coleus atropurpureus (Jawer kotok) leaves, at level of 10% into elephant grass as basal diet, on digestibility, end products of fermentation and microbial population. The experiment was done in the in vitro system using Hohenheim gas test and sampling was done at different hours of incubation. Gas production, ammonia, short chain fatty acid (SCFA), microbial population structure and microbial mass were analysed. There were no difference in total gas and SCFA production, apparent or true digestibility. Inclusion of Mengkudu and Mangkokan gave higher ammonia production whereas Jawer kotok reduced ammonia production compared to the basal although its Nitrogen content was the highest (18.6%). Nitrogen content in the residue was lower in Mengkudu and higher in Jawer kotok than elephant grass which may be contributed by different crude protein content. Isovalerate production which a degraded product of leucine was higher for Mengkudu but lower for Jawer kotok, which indicated that more protein degradation occurred on Mengkudu than on Jawer kotok. Tannins in Jawer kotok may bind to protein and may be responsible for less ammonia production and protein degradation. Bacterial population and microbial mass measured by ¹⁵N show similar results that none of these plants gave higher values compared to elephant grass. The eukaryotes population was very low when Mengkudu and Mangkokan were which may be due to the presence of saponin. In conclusion, there were slight positive effects from Mengkudu and negative effects from Jawer kotok, but overall, these medicinal plants donot affect rumen fermentation to a large extent. They may act positive in the host metabolism.

Keywords: Fermentation end products, in vitro fermentation, medicinal plants, microbial population

Contact Address: Elizabeth Wina, University of Hohenheim, Institute for Animal Production in the Tropics and Subtropics, Fruwirthstraße 12, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: winauni-hohenheim.de