Chemical Composition and Ruminal Digestibility of Ceratoides, a Salt-tolerant Perennial Plant,at Different Years

It has been proposed that salt-tolerant plant could be used as a feed resource for ruminants whereby salt would be removed from salinized land (Asian -Aust. J. Anim. Sci. (2002) 15:998 -1001). Ceratoides arborescens (Losinsk.) Tsien et C. G. Ma is known as a drought-and salt-tolerant plant,a kind of shrubs, growing in semi-arid land of Inner Mongolia. Because the covering effect of the perennial plant as a mulch over the soil might be expected, the optimum covering effect would be obtained after the growth period.The perennial plant produces seeds around summer and end its growth thereafter. Nutrient value of the perennial salt-tolerant plant, however,had not been reported in flowering period at different year. It is necessary to know the ruminal degradability of the plants of each growing year in order to determine the regimen to diet for ruminants. The present experiment,therefore,was undertaken to analyze the digestibility and chemical composition of Ceratoides arborescens as feed for ruminants.