Haulm Forage Value of Lentil Varieties in Central Ethiopia

The major livestock feed next to natural pasture in central highlands of Ethiopia is cereal crop residue; however, supplementation with additional nutritional entities is most often recommended.  The present study aims to examine the nutritive value of lentil haulm and how this value varies among the varieties and locations. For this, 80gms of haulm samples of Alemaya, Derash and local lentil varieties were collected with four replications from Bishoftu, Akaki, and Chefe-Donsa from on farm trial sites of Ethiopian institute of agricultural research. To test for the variation in haulm nutritional values among the varieties, two-way ANOVA was employed. The results showed that the interaction of variety and location had significant effect on crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), metabolizable energy (ME) and in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) (P<0.05). Here, CP content of lentil haulm was higher for a local variety when compared with the two commercial varieties. The haulm yield (4.38t/ha) and haulm dry matter yield (3.97 t DM/ha) were higher for Derash when compared with that of the local variety (P<0.05). Overall, the present finding denoted that although in some cases the lentil haulm nutritional values and yields vary among varieties and were dependent on growing locations, it can be observed to have optimum feeding values to supplement livestock feed with the cereal crop residues in central Ethiopia.