Process of fermenting cassava roots and leaves for aquaculture feed

Faced with the fact that the price of industrial feed for aquatic products is increasing while the price of fish is continuously decreasing, leading to low economic efficiency for fish farmers. Therefore, many farmers have cut down on the amount of industrial feed and gradually switched to locally available feed sources such as rice, corn, cassava, rice bran, etc.

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In particular, the use of fresh cassava tubers is directly put into the pond, while the dried form is rarely used. As a result, many households have "killed" their own fish, due to the high amount of cyanhydric acid (HCN) in cassava tubers. To limit unwanted risks and at the same time make the most scientific and effective use of both cassava tubers and cassava leaves as feed for aquaculture, contributing to reducing feed costs and increasing profits after each crop. Here are some benefits of cassava tubers, cassava leaves and the silage process for making aquaculture feed.

Benefits of cassava tubers and cassava leaves for aquaculture: In cassava tubers, starch accounts for 76.2 - 77.2%, protein 2.2 - 2.7%. In cassava leaves, protein 21 - 28%.

Process of fermenting cassava roots and cassava leaves

Step 1: Prepare incubation tools

Silage tools include earthenware pots, pits, plastic bags, and cement tanks. The most common is building a pit and plastic bags. Because the silage environment requires airtightness, the silage tools must be airtight for better silage fermentation.

Step 2: Prepare compost materials

Cassava tubers are thinly sliced ​​or crushed; cassava leaves are chopped into 5-10 cm pieces and then mixed with salt at a dosage of 1 kg of salt for 200 kg of cassava tubers and fresh cassava leaves. In addition, we can add rice bran and corn flour to the compost ingredients as follows: 20-30 kg of rice bran, corn flour and 70-80 kg of cassava tubers and fresh cassava leaves.

Step 3: Fermentation

Put cassava roots and cassava leaves into the composting tool, compact it and cover it tightly. Note that every 15-20cm of raw materials, we compact it. After 7 days, the compost mass will shrink and we continue to compact it to make it tighter. The tighter we compact it and do not let air in, the better the quality of the silage will be.

Step 4: Exploitation and use

With the above silage process, cassava roots and leaves can be well preserved for over 6 months, and cassava leaves for 3-5 months without affecting the quality.

After 21 days of fermentation, cassava roots and leaves can be fed to fish. Fermentation reduces HCN toxicity, but not completely, so be careful when feeding fish.

When making good use of raw materials such as cassava tubers, cassava leaves and agricultural by-products such as corn flour and rice bran through the anaerobic fermentation process, it will be a good quality food source for growth and prevention of digestive diseases for aquatic animals.

According to khuyennonghanoi - LY