Assessment of new forage sources in saline areas of Iran

Halophytes, as integral parts of many marine, coastal and terrestrialecosystems, can play an important future role for biosaline agriculture, forageproduction and habitat restoration. there is currently a lack of publicawareness and scientific documentation regarding nutritive value ofhalophytes. the aim of this research was to determine nutritive value ofnative halophytes of iran. seven saline indicator species of iran includinghalocnemum strobilaceum, halostachys caspica, seidlitzia rosmarinus,salicornia herbacea, alhagi persarum, salsola regida and atriplexleucoclada were sampled at three phenological stages (vegetative, floweringand seed ripening). then, the plants were powdered and six quality traits,crude protein (cp), acid detergent fiber (adf), moisture, metabolizableenergy (me), ash and dry mater digestibility (dmd) were determined.anova results revealed that there were significant differences among allspecies and phenological stages. me, dmd and cp decreased in all thespecies in three stages, but adf changed significantly in seed ripening stagesin h. strabilaceum (20.63), s. rosmarinus (17.61 %) and h. caspica (17.4 %).the difference was not significant in flowering (32.56%) and seed ripening(31.66 %) stages for a. persarum. increasing of ash and moisture content inflowering stage in succulent halophytes helps them to tolerate salinity. due toless fiber and more cp, me and dmd, s. regida has the highest nutritivevalue and a. leucoclada has the lowest value. also, late vegetative or earlyflowering stages are the best time of forage quality according to these traits.