Nutritional evaluation of heat-treated and raw leaf powder of medicago sativa for freshwater fish, Cirrhinus Mrigala

Abstract

A 90 day feeding trial was conducted to assess the efficacy of Medicago sativa plant leaf powder as a supplementary feed ingredient for the fish Cirrhinus mrigala. Six experimental diets were formulated by replacing fishmeal from standard diet at the proportion of 30%, 40% and 50% by alfalfa leaf powder. Three of them kept as raw and remaining three subjected to hydrothermal processing. The weight gain, specific growth rate, food conversion efficiency, biochemical composition was not largely affected by the plant powder incorporated feed as compared to control feed containing rice bran and groundnut oilcake as main ingredients. This study revealed that the alfalfa plant powder may be a promising source to replace fishmeal up to 50% inclusion level.