Chemical and nutritional characteristics of Cannabis sativa L. co ‐products

AbstractCannabis sativa L. is an annual herbaceous plant. It was used for centuries to obtain different products. In the last century, hemp cultivation was forbidden due to the psychoactive effects of tetrahydrocannabinol acid (THCA). In the last years, new strains, characterized by high cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) and low THCA level, were developed renewing the interest in hemp cultivation to obtain food or to extract essential oils from flowers. All these processes produce many residues with different chemical –physical characteristics. In order to evaluate their potential use also in animal nutrition, some hemp co-products were evaluated. Two different co-products of seed processes (flour and oil) and two co-products obtained trimming the flowers, differing in granulometry were used. The samples were a nalysed for chemical composition and evaluatedin vitro using the gas production technique with buffaloes' ruminalinoculum. All hemp co-products showed interesting nutritional characteristics, such as crude protein content always higher than 20% on a dry matter basis, and high neutral detergent fibre concentration partially lignified. Thein vitro gas production parameters at 120  h of incubation showed quite low fermentability testified by the low organic matter degradability and cumulative gas volume (OMD from 28.09 to 45.64% and OMCV from 110 to 164 ml/g, respectively). Also, the methane produced after 24 h of incubation was particularly low (from 1.78 to 11.73 ml/g d O...
Source: Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition - Category: Zoology Authors: Tags: SUPPLEMENT ARTICLE Source Type: research