Nicotiana tabacum

Tobacco

Useful reference: 103

Only the leaf of the tobacco plant is commercially important, and the other parts are usually wasted. The varieties grown for cigarette tobacco are usually allowed to flower and bear seeds. The seeds are very small, and as only a minor fraction of the total production is needed for seeding purposes, they are a by-product which can be put to good use. The seeds are entirely free of the poisonous alkaloid nicotine present in the leaves. They are rich (35-40%) in edible semidrying oil, and the oilcake can be used as feed for ruminants. Up to 2.8 kg per day per head have been fed to dairy cows. Chickens experimentally given 25% whole tobacco seeds and 75% commercial feed in the first ten weeks of life gained as fast and efficiently as those given only commercial feed. In southern Ethiopia chewed tobacco leaves are spit into the throats of sheep and oxen. The animals like this and seem to grow better as a result, possibly because the nicotine helps kill internal parasites.

					As % of dry matter
				DM	CP	CF	Ash	EE	NFE	Ca	P	Ref
Oilcake, solvent
extracted, India				86.7	36.9	25.2	15.2	0.4	22.3			324
Oilcake, solvent
extracted, Germany				88.5	35.9	28.5	13.8	0.7	21.1			103
							Digestibility (%)
					Animal		CP	CF	EE	NFE	ME	Ref
Oilcake, solvent
extracted					Sheep		67.4	2.0	99.9	40.2	1.45	324
Oilcake, solvent
extracted					Cattle		74.5	27.7	77.4	68.0	2.00	103

References

103, 324