Metroxylon sagu

Sago palm

A palm tree up to 15 m high with large pinnate leaves and stout creeping or ascending stems. It is often cultivated and grows well in freshwater swamps. Sago meal is produced from the trunk when the tree is about twelve years old. The trunk is cut into sections, which are split lengthwise, and the soft material in the centre is scooped out. From this material starch is extracted by washing and straining. The starch is dried to yield sago meal or granulated to "pearl" sago.

A single sago palm yields about 150-300 kg of sago. A normal freshwater swamp can produce fifty palms suitable for felling per hectare each year. The energy production per hectare is thus very high. The sago can be used for feeding either as flour or as "rasp," obtained by mechanical rasping of the barked sago trunks. Sundried rasp gives a similar performance to that of sago flour when it is fed to cattle and older pigs. The meal is very digestible and can be fed to all classes of livestock. It has been included up to 50% in pig diets and up to 25% in poultry diets. High levels of sago meal in rations tend to decrease production and impair feed conversion.

					As % of dry matter
				DM	CP	CF	Ash	EE	NFE	Ca	P	Ref
Sago meal, Malaysia				85.1	2.2	5.5	4.5	1.4	86.4	0.04	0.02	292
Refuse after starch
extraction,
Malaysia				77.3	2.7	10.1	21.0	0.3	65.9	0.38	0.03	"
							Digestibility (%)
					Animal		CP	CF	EE	NFE	ME	Ref
Sago meal					Pigs		neg.	neg.	46.0	86.0	3.09	510