Animal feed from water hyacinth
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Water hyacinth contains nutrients essential for animals but making a palatable feed from them is not easy because of the high moisture.
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WATER HYACINTH (Eichornia crassipes) is one of the most prolific plant colonisers of rivers and lakes. Such water weeds are an environmental disaster as they interfere with water transportation and fishing.
Ironically the water hyacinth may be a promising candidate for solving needs of animal feed, energy and control of water pollution and in this regard micro-organisms can play an important role.
Water Hyacinth is a microphyte and is rich in cellulose content, which can be used as a renewable source of energy. The use of fermentation technology for the production of value added chemicals from lignocelluloses holds great promise.
The process of manufacture of enzymes from water hyacinth comprises drying of weed, pulverizing, inoculating with a spore suspension of Trichoderma reesei, incubation, extraction of enzyme, its purification and spray drying. The residue left after fermentation is utilised as a soil fertilizer.
Water hyacinth contains most of the essential nutrients for animal growth but making a palatable feed from them is not easy because of the high moisture.
Research indicates, however that the plants can be converted into silage by placing chopped plants in a closed container and allowing them to undergo microbial fermentation for about a month. Such silage has been shown to be highly palatable to sheep and other animals. Potentially the water hyacinth may be used as a source of energy and for the purification of sewage. Biogas or methane production from the microbial anaerobic decomposition of water hyacinths has been investigated only on a laboratory scale.
Many factors such as carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratios and temperature, affect the amount of gas and residue produced from the microbial digestion of the plant material.
Based on research it has been calculated that one hectare of water hyacinths can produce enough biomass each day to generate between 90 and 180 m of methane gas and at the same time 0.5 tonne of residue is useful as a fertiliser.
P.Maheswari & Maya P.Nair
Applied Technology and Training Centre, Kawdiar, Thiruvananthapuram-3
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