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ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to evaluate nutrient and chemical composition of Jatropha curcas leaves. Young, juvenile and old Jatropha curcas leaveswere collected from Jatropha plantation closed to Wildlife Ecotourism proposed site, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Benin, Benin City. The leaves were taken to Faculty of Agriculture, University of Benin, Benin City main laboratory. The proximate and chemical composition were carried out according to AOAC official method. The experiment was laid out in complete randomized design (CRD) with three treatments and each replicated three times. Data collected were subjected to inferential statistics using analysis of variance (ANOVA)at 5% level of significance. The results revealed significant difference (P<0.05) in percentage crude protein, ash content and nitrogen free extract composition among the samples of Jatropha curcas leaves used for this study. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in percentage moisture content, crude fat and crude fibre composition among the samples of the Jatropha curcas leaves. Jatropha curcas leaves contained contain an average of percentage moisture content (5.2±0.7%), crude protein (9.0±0.7%), ash content (9.2±1.2%), crude fat (5.3±0.5%), crude fibre (11.1±1.3%) and nitrogen free extract (60.1±3.2%). The average mineral composition of Jatropha curcas leaves are calcium (67.0±4. 2mg/100g), phosphorus (0.74±0.3 mg/100g), potassium (15.9±0.4 mg/100g), magnesium (44.6±1.7 mg/100g), sodium (9.9±0.5mg/100g), iron (2.8±0.6 mg/100g) and copper (3.0±0.3 mg/100g). The results revealed significant difference (P<0.05) in all the mineral composition evaluated among the samples of Jatropha curcas leaves except the iron composition of the leaves. The values evaluated in the matured leaves dominated values evaluated in the young and juvenile leaves. In conclusion, the study was a scientific validation that Jatropha curcas leaves contains essential minerals substances that produce definite physiological action on the body of human and animals. This suggest that J. curcas leaves has great potentials for livestock nutritional purposes, but due to the presence of some toxic substances this cannot be achieved at the moment.
