Abstract
Moringa stenopetala is one of the indigenous agro-forestry tree species cultivated in multi-storey inter-cropping system in the southern dry land areas of Ethiopia. It is an economically important tree species in which most parts of the plant are used for different purposes. Leaves of the plant collected from age classes of the tree are edible after processing. Despite its wider usage in the southern parts of the country, little is known about the nutritional composition of the leaves at different age classes of the tree. We investigated the effect of tree age on nutritional, ant-nutritional and proximate composition of M. stenopetala leaves and determined the moisture content, ash content, crude fiber, crude protein, fat, tannin content, phytate content, iron, calcium, phosphorus and potassium in the leaves. Authentic representative M. stenopetala leave samples were collected from 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 years old tree in Derashe area, southern part of Ethiopia. The collected leaf samples were dried and subjected to physico-chemical analysis following standard methods of analysis. The laboratory results were analyzed using SAS Statistical software. The analysis indicated a significant difference in the main effect of all nutrition and anti- nutritional parameters between the five classes at 1% significant level. However, there was no significant difference in the cationic composition of iron and zinc among age classes of the tree. This study suggests that plant age has an influence on nutrition, anti-nutritional composition and most of the proximate elements. M. stenopetala trees that grew up well and reached age of five had better nutritional, anti-nutritional and proximate composition implying that leaf collection should to be done on trees that are established and grown well and reached at least five years of age. Key words: Moringa stenopetala, nutritional, anti-nutritional, proximate composition.
Highlights
The Eastern Africa region is predominantly a dry land with about 60% of the total land area classified as arid or semi-arid (Funk et al, 2008)
The analysis of variance showed that the effect of all nutrition and anti- nutritional composition parameters differed among the five tree ages at 1% significant level
We have noted that maximum moisture content (9.88, 10.6 and 7.79%) was found in the study on tree of 3; 4 and 5 of M. stenopetala leaves compared to the previous results (6.43 to 6.83%) obtained by Stevens et al (2015 ) on proximate and anti-nutritional composition on different accession of Moringa oleifera leaves across Nigeria
Summary
The Eastern Africa region is predominantly a dry land with about 60% of the total land area classified as arid or semi-arid (Funk et al, 2008). The rural economy is dominated by subsistence agriculture or pastoralists that. Are dependent on the available natural resources. Drought poses the greatest challenge to the livelihoods ofcommunities in this region, a problem that is compounded by over-reliance on traditional farming/ pastoral activities, which cannot cope with adversity brought about by drought. Moringa stenopetala is widely cultivated in Southern Ethiopia especially in Gamu-Gofa, Sidama, Konso and the adjoining provinces Abuye et al (2003). Moringa is a drought tolerant fast growing indigenous tree mainly planted and maintained for its nutritional value (Assefa et al, 2015)
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