Effects of Replacing Soybean Meal with Crassocephalum crepidioides leaf Meal on Growth, Nutrient Utilisation and Whole Body Composition of Labeo rohita Fingerlings

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of soybean meal replacement with Crassocephalum crepidioides leaf meal (CLM) on growth, nutrient utilisation and whole body composition of Labeorohita fingerlings. A C. crepidioides leaf meal (CLM) was prepared by removing antinutritional factors through indigenous processing technique. The antinutritional factors of the processed CLM were found to decrease substantially, and the in vitro digestibility of the CLM was 75.31%. The nutritional potential of CLM in the diets of Labeorohita fingerlings (initial average weight 5.62±0.07g) were assessed in a 60 days feeding trial. Five isonitrogenous (305.0±0.08g Kg −1 ) and isocaloric (16.74±0.02 MJ Kg −1 ) experimental diets were formulated with a graded level of CLM, i.e. 0%, 5%, 10% or 15% in replacement for soybean meal, and designated as control, CLM5, CLM10, CLM15 respectively were fed with their respective diets to satiation twice daily at 10:00h and 18:00h. At the end of the experiment, growth performance and nutrient utilization indices such as individual weight gain (99.30-135.10%), specific growth rate (1.15-1.42%), feed conversion ratio (1.76-2.26), protein efficiency ratio (1.44-1.87) were not significantly (p>0.05) affected by the dietary treatments irrespective of inclusion levels of CLM. Hepatosomatic index (1.04-1.31), intestinal somatic index (4.19-4.65), survival (100%) and whole body composition of the fish among various dietary groups did not vary significantly (p>0.05). Thus, this study revealed that CLM is a promising alternative source of protein which could replace soybean meal up to 15% in the diets of L. rohita fingerlings without any adverse effects on growth, nutrient utilisation, whole body composition.