Feeding poultry with regional and fully organic compo-nents, in line with animal needs, is still very difficult to achieve in many parts of Europe. The supply of sulphur-containing amino acids (e.g., methionine) is especially challenging.
Solution
In the search for protein-rich feed components, the culti-vation of nettles was investigated. Stinging nettles were traditionally fed to pigs and poultry, partly because of its high protein content. The cultivation of stinging nettles was tested in an exper-iment on two trial plots. The sowing was done by pur-chased seeds (no-till) and by vegetative propagation (sto-lons). During growing, different fertiliser applications were tested. Consisting of chicken manure and sulphur (Kieserite 25 % MgO, 50 % SO3) in autumn and spring to provide information on the influence of sulphur applica-tions on methionine concentration.
Description
The on-farm cultivation of nettles for feeding purposes could be an element in feeding monogastric animals. The health-promoting effect of nettles should not be underestimated. Purchased seeds had a poor germination. Propagation from cuttings (stolons) is more effective. Cultivate with 50 cm between and 30 cm between plants (see figure 1). The stinging nettle has a high nitrogen demand so application of fertiliser is recommended before planting and after the first cut. The crop should not be harvested too late, in order to achieve the highest leaf proportion (see figure 2). Any influence of fertiliser application could not be determined. Clearly visible is the influence of the soil temperature. Later cuts provided significantly better methionine yields. Analysis of the pure leaf mass yielded good methionine values up to 4.52 g/kg DM88 (see table 1). However, the ratio of methionine to lysine, at 0.32, is too low. Compared to small-grained legumes, nettle cultivation is very costly and the additional methionine yields are too low when considering the extra cost.
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