Abstract
The aim of this experiment was to study the difference in general chemical components, amino acid composition, mineral composition, in vitro dry matter digestibility, gas production and methane production of Jatropha curcas meal, rapeseed meal, and soybean meal. The crude protein content (28.2% of dry matter) of Jatropha curcas meal was lower than that of rapeseed and soybean meal. However, the arginine content of Jatropha curcas meal was higher than that of rapeseed meal. The in vitro dry matter digestibility and methane production of Jatropha curcas meal were low compared with those of soybean and rapeseed meal at all incubation times test. The dietary cation-anion differences of Jatropha curcas, soybean and rapeseed meal were calculated. At 26.2, the Jatropha curcas meal value was between those of rapeseed meal and soybean meal. Since it could not be studied in this research, it is important to consider means of reducing phorbol ester content in future. From these results, no clear relationship among the amount of methane production, tannin content, and fatty acid composition in Jatropha curcas meal was found. The ether extract, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, and acid detergent lignin contents of Jatropha curcas meal were higher than those of rapeseed and soybean meals. It has been suggested that these values involve a low level of total gas production and methane production.
