Impact of Mangrove Leaves (Rhizophora apiculata) in Limewater on Nutrients Digestibility, Rumen Ecosystem and in vitro Methane Production

The Mangrove is one of the plants that live in coastal areas, because a lot of their availability, mangrove leaves can be used as animal feed. The problem with this mangrove is contained a fairly high tannin which can be harmful to livestock. This study aims to determine the impact of boiled mangrove leaves (Rhizophora apiculata) with lime water on tannins, digestibility, rumen characteristics, and in vitro methane production. The design used in this study was a randomized block design using 4 treatments and 5 replications. The treatments were boiled with the respective concentrations of quicklime water as follows, P1 (without boiling), P2 (5% lime water), P3 (10% lime water), and P4 (15% lime water) for 10 min. The results showed that boiling mangrove leaves with 5% lime water showed highly significant (p<0.01) results on total tannins content, nutrient digestibility, rumen fluid characteristics, and reduced methane gas content. Nutrient digestibility includes among others: Dry matter digestibility (65.18%), organic matter digestibility (66.31%), crude protein digestibility (67.90%), and increased digestibility of fiber fractions including NDF digestibility (59.01%), ADF digestibility (55.75%), cellulose digestibility (64.02%), hemicellulose digestibility (69.61%) and increased rumen fluid characteristics such as NH₃ contents (4.32 Mg/100 mL) and VFA content (130.2 mm) and Methane gas (231.39 mL/gDM). The results of this study concluded that boiling mangrove leaves in lime water at a concentration of 5% for 10 min contributed to the most prominent total tannins (4.54%) and digestibility of nutrients.