Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) Steud. is widely used as a high-protein supplementary food for ruminants in many parts of the tropics. Native to Central America and Mexico, it has become widely naturalized elsewhere but the introduced populations are mostly of unknown origin and uncertain quality. Studies of the genetic resources from the native range, under a research programme at OFI, have shown great variation between populations in yield (Dunsdon and Simons, 1996). The objective of the research described here was to investigate whether there is also important genetic variation in fodder quality, to inform decisions on future distribution of ‘superior’ germplasm of G. sepium under the OFI programme.

In vitro gas production technique