SOCIO-CULTURAL AND PHYTOCHEMICAL RANKING OF FICUS MICROCARPA IN COMPARISM WITH SIX SELECTED INDIGENOUS BROWSE PLANTS FROM SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA.

Abstract

Domestic animals such as ruminants depend on the availability of biological diversity for sustenance which enables the selection of indigenous available raw materials in a given location. The present study focuses on socio-cultural and phytochemical ranking of Ficus microcarpa in comparism with six selected indigenous browse plants of Southeastern Nigeria. Socio-cultural and physicochemical studies of F. microcapa was carried out followed by its numerical scoring alongside six other plants; Garcinia kola,Mucuna pruriens, Gongronema latifolium, Manniophyton /illvunr, Nuaclea popegnine and Manihot utilissima to obtain a comparism across the plant types. The socio-cultural scoring scales were given as; whether the plant was planted by man in the compound, used as browse plant, has human food value, has medicinal value, amenable to vegetative propagation, evergreen all year round, and serves as firewood. Thereafter a scoring scale of 7 was used to rank the seven plants across nine selected phytochemical parameters which were based on the crude protein, ash, metabolizable energy, NDF, copper, iron, antioxidants, trypsin inhibitor and cyanide contents of the leaf meals. The two score results were then tallied to obtain the final mean score for each plant.Ficus "licrocarpa recorded the highest score of 85.71% in socio-cultural valueswhereas lowest score of 28.57% was recorded by M. pruriens. Based on the phytochemical parameters considered, F. microearpa scored a moderate 47.61% only better than 44.44% scored by M. fillvum.The present study has shown that Ficusmicrocarpa recorded the highest socio-cultural score across 6 other indigenous plants compared with it and recorded relatively lower phytochemical score than plants such as M utilissima,G. latifolium, G. kola, M. pruriens and N. popegnine. The combination of socio-cultural and phytochemical parameters has led to the development of a more reliable though sophisticated ranking method.lt is recommended that F. microcarpa be promoted as a browse of promise in the hot humid tropical zones of Nigeria and beyond.