Preservation of Fruits and Vegetables Residues

Most by-products from agro industrial processing plants have high moisture content. Although they are often palatable and rich in nutrient but they tend to ferment and spoil rapidly unless they are dried or processed in some other way.  These residues are produced on numerous scattered industries, farms etc. which may be remote from areas where livestock is concentrated. In this situation the cost of collection and transportation is likely to be high. Another problem is that many residues are seasonal and become available all at the same time of year. This means that these need to be treated for storage if they are to be made available as a feed resource during lean season. The literature regarding the methods used for conserving high moisture feed has been reviewed in the following text.

Any use of agro industrial by products residues must meet the same requirements as the conventional feeds do.  Such feeds must not only be palatable and digestible to livestock, without any harmful effects but also they must be available where and when they are needed, and their cost must be low enough to make their use economical. The main problem with the use of these residues is the high moisture content and short storage life unless they are dried or processed otherwise or converted to silage.    Agro-industrial wastes are a frequent cause of pollution. Possibly the cost of processing them in to livestock should be shared by the processes.  As stated above that most of the vegetable and fruit residues are high in moisture up to 96%, therefore they cannot be preserved for more than a few days. Prior to Silage making drying and chopping are also required which makes the method bit expensive and cumbersome for farmers. Thus field drying can be more appropriate way to preserve such residue. After drying the feed can be stored for a longer time and can be used in the season when shortage of green fodders occurs.

Chemical preservation:

High moisture residues cannot be sun dried and sometimes the process of drying is expensive and often inconvenient. Because fermentation takes place due to microbial growth. Therefore, use of chemicals to enhance the shelf life of such residues become obligatory. After treating with certain chemicals high moistures residues can be preserved as such or in the form of silage.  A number of chemicals such as acetic acid (Lopez et al., 2000), propionic acid (Atreja and Khan, 2002), formic acid (Parker and Krawshew, 1982), formaldehyde (Barry and Fenneessey, 1972), urea (Polan et al., 1968) and urea-salt combinations (Thakur and Sharma, 1995 and Atreja and Khan, 2002) have been tried to increase the shelf life of high moisture feeds. Similar kinds of treatments may also be applicable for preserving the vegetable and fruit residues owing to their high moisture content. Scerra et al. (2001) developed a procedure in which citrus pulp was ensiled together with chopped wheat straw in a ratio of 80/20 for 60 days. The wheat straw was used to limit ensiling losses and to provide the silage the characteristics of good and cheap substitute for farm forages. In a recent study conducted at NDRI, Karnal, the carrot residues after wilting were treated with certain chemicals and ensiled together with chopped wheat straw to increase the DM content of silage, thereby limiting ensiling losses. Feeding of carrot silage to goats gave promising results in growth and lactation trial (Atreja and Khan, 2002).

• Futuristic Feed Resources Problems and Potential
• Fruit and Vegetable Processing Residues
• Scope and Limitations of Processing Waste as Fodder
• Antinutritional Factors of Processing Waste as Fodder
• Nutritional Value of Fruit and Vegetable Residues
• Fruits and Vegetables Residue Based Ration