ABSTRACT
In the ever growing ruminant feed industry, the need to find nutritionally rich plant materials to be used as feed is becoming increasingly important, hence, the need to analyse the plant materials to determine their chemical composition and Nutritive value. Chemical analysis of leaves is both expensive and time consuming. Near Infrared reflectance spectroscopy on the other hand is a sensitive rapid and nondestructive analytical technique. In this study, three leaf samples; Cymbopogon citratus, Vernonia amygdalina and Ocimum gratissimum, were air-dried, milled and analysed with Near Infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS). The results from the analysis included the chemical composition, the amino acid and fatty acid composition, and the mineral composition. From the results gotten, it was observed that all three plant materials differed significantly from each other in their chemical composition (p < 0.05). It was also observed that Vernonia amygdalina had the highest Crude protein, Ether extract and In vitro dry matter digestibility values; 25.03%, 5.43% and 64.64% respectively, while Cymbopogoon citratus had the highest Crude fibre, NDF%DM, ADF%DM and ADL%DM values; 19.05%, 66.37%, 39.39% and 4.54% respectively. They also differed significantly in most of their amino acid, fatty acid and mineral components except Arginine, Lysine, Tryptophane and Copper where at least two of the leaves did not differ significantly. However, the results gotten from the analysis were consistent with prior research, validating the potential of NIRS as a reliable tool for compositional analysis.
