Nutritive value of cooking melon from diverse processed products as energy source for livestock

Botswana is endowed with high diversity of both domesticated and wild plants despite its semi-aridness. The present study determined the nutritive value of diverse processed products from cooking melon (Citrullus vulgaris) with a view to use it as an energy source for livestock. Melon was fractionated into pulp and seeds (PS), outside cover (OC), outside cover and pulp (OCP) and left as whole melon (WM) and processed by a kitchen blender before drying under shade. Results showed that processed products have low dry matter (DM) content which were significantly different (p<0.01; 44.1, 37.9, 33.7 and 47.1%) for OCP, PS, OC and WM respectively. The low DM and high moisture content pose a challenge of processing and storage of melon products. Pulp and seed product have high energy which is highly degraded by rumen microbes. The high quality of the WM suggest that it may not be necessary to fractionate melon into different products.