Новости/Аналитика

Waste hemp leaf and flower biomass is a safe feed for ruminants and a good alternative to alfalfa to feed livestock, as it is a raw material that can provide significant economic benefits to livestock.

On the pages of the specialized electronic edition of national hemp growers, the question of “Prospects for the use of hemp feed” is raised quite regularly both in our country and abroad. In the course of one of the research projects carried out in 2021 carried out within the framework of the “Hemp University”, “Effective feeds offered by hemp growers to the modern hemp growing market” were developed. That is why the results of research by scientists from the Oregon State University published in the Journal of Animal Science have interested the editors and are offered to the attention of our esteemed readers and listeners.

Experiments carried out by scientists at Oregon State University have shown that spent hemp biomass (the main by-product of the process of extracting cannabinoids from the plant) can be included in the diet of lambs without any adverse effects on the health of animals or the quality of their meat.

According to the researchers, the results are important because the by-products obtained during the processing of hemp leaves and inflorescences currently have little economic value for the hemp industry in the economically developed countries of the world, whose companies commercialize the therapeutic properties of the hemp plant.

“To our knowledge, our study is the first to evaluate the impact of feeding spent hemp biomass to livestock,” said Serkan Ates, associate professor at the Oregon College of Agricultural Sciences. “The results are important for both hemp farmers and livestock breeders because they prove that this hemp by-product can be used in livestock diets. Essentially a by-product of the process of extracting therapeutically active elements from a plant is a waste from the main production, and livestock farmers can save resources by adding this kind of waste hemp biomass to their feed.”

To conduct the experiments, the Oregon researchers fed male lambs two different amounts of spent hemp biomass (10% and 20% of the total feed) and then “withheld” the hemp biomass for four weeks, the so-called withdrawal period. They then assessed weight gain, carcass characteristics, meat quality, and health parameters of the lambs.

Their findings included:

• the nutritional quality of the spent hemp biomass is not inferior to alfalfa, which is usually fed to lambs, and has a lower taste and better digestibility;

• feed intake was adversely affected by feeding 20% spent hemp biomass in the short term but not the long term, while feeding 10% spent hemp biomass increased feed intake in the long term. Despite this, no effect on the weight of the lambs was observed;

• with the exception of increased shrinkage and loss during cooking, which can also affect tenderness, other parameters related to carcass and meat quality did not change when fed with spent hemp biomass;

• the spent hemp biomass affected the metabolism in a way that did not seem to be harmful and improved the antioxidant capacity of the animals;

• the animal's liver was not affected, but there was a decrease in hepatic clearance, the ability of the liver to extract or metabolize drugs. The authors indicated that this latter finding requires further study as it may affect the clearance of other drugs that may be given to lambs.

According to Mr. Ates, "The spent biomass of hemp leaves and buds is a safe feed for ruminants and a good alternative to alfalfa to feed livestock, as it is a raw material that can provide livestock with significant economic benefits."

Commentary of the specialists of the “Ukrainian Industrial Hemp Association”

Waste hemp biomass is currently not legalized by the US Food and Drug Administration as livestock feed due to the potential presence of THC and its possible negative effects on animal health. The ongoing experiments by scientists from the Oregon State University will be another “pebble in the piggy bank” to develop a procedure for using the spent “green mass” of the hemp plant for animal fattening.

Unfortunately, the results of national experiments on fattening animals with leaves and inflorescences of technical hemp of a therapeutic orientation are commercialized outside the territory of our country. And if our American colleagues are experimenting with the spent “green mass” of the hemp plant and recognize its nutritional characteristics as equal to alfalfa, then a significant increase in the dry weight of animals, as well as an improvement in the physiological state of the industrial livestock of animals using feed additives developed in Ukraine, are commercialized by Hungarian livestock breeders , Slovakia, Romania. The current legislation of our country does not make it possible to legally use the achievements of Ukrainian scientists in this matter. National developments aimed at commercializing the “green mass” of the hemp plant on the territory of Ukraine will be presented to the students of the “Hemp University” during the preparation of the eighth training course for specialists in the field of modern hemp growing, which will be held from October 31 to November 3, 2022 at the NUBiP of Ukraine.

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