Projects / Programmes
The use of hops as alternative functional ingridient in animal nutrition
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 4.02.02 |
Biotechnical sciences |
Animal production |
Animal nutrition |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| B400 |
Biomedical sciences |
Zootechny, animal husbandry, breeding |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 4.02 |
Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences |
Animal and Dairy science |
hops, animal nutrition, antioxidative stress, antimicrobic effect
Researchers (22)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
One of the objectives of the common agricultural policy in Slovenia and EU is a production of safe, high-quality and low-cost food, providing high nutritional value and enabling high level of self-sufficiency rate as well. In beer brewing process the hops has been used as an antimicrobic resource for centuries. With increasing trends of antibiotic reduction in animal nutrition in EU antimicrobic and antioxidative activity of hops in animal nutrition will be tested in the proposed project. The use of hops in animal nutrition could have big impact on extenuation of hop hiperproduction periods (maintenance of Slovenian hop growing and share of Slovenian supply on the global market). On the other hand we will improve weight gain in animal production by using natural substances.
Because of the needs for supplying safe food and saving the sustainable Slovenian hop growing as the main exported branch in Slovenian agriculture in the proposed project (1) new market for hop growers will be found and usage of hops as functional animal fodder will be tested; (2) in order to prevent coccidiosis, effect of hop cones will be examined, its antioxidative activity and consequently effect on animal health, productivity and quality of animal products will be examined as well; (3) with in vitro and in vivo nutritional treatments the effect of different hop varieties on digestion and degradability of nutrients and their effect on emission of greenhouse gases (methane and carbon dioxide) will be explored; (4) with nutritional tests the effect of hops on milk composition will be evaluated, and particular emphasis will be put on health status of udder; (5) at present existing hop varieties and new breeding lines as well with different quantity of beta-acids will be included, intended for use in animal nutrition; (6) recommendations for hop use in animal nutrition will be provided.
With the proposed project the key information and new niesche for hop growing will be gathered, and in the field of food safety new alternative ingridient will be tested. Because of complexity and interdisciplinary character of the proposed project the project team includes different experts from different fields. With the objectives of the project we are contributing towards the call of applications – 'Zagotovimo.si hrano za jutri' in the year 2011.
Significance for science
The project team was active in the field of scientific publications – in the time of project duration 1 SCI article was published, the 2. article is under revision in relevant scientific journal. The conclusions of the project were published on 7 scientific commissions in Slovenia and on international level as well. The research was innovative and we can assume that the basis and good starting points were revealed. In the way of reducing the production costs new additional narrow-oriented research will be needed – determination of optimal hop dosage, the effect of specific bitter compound in the nutrition of different animals, determination of selected hop variety. The results are very promising since the addition of hop can reduce the greenhouse gases, as methane and carbon-dioxide – higher animal production is expecting, since producing of methane is presenting 10 % of energy loss. The project was very interdisciplinary oriented so many different starting points for further scientific research were revealed.
Significance for the country
Because of very applicative use in animal nutrition the project results have long-terming effects - they are enabling the use of hop supply on the market. Hop growing as the main Slovenian exporting agricultural branch will achieved better results. The results of the project are directly useful in ecological chicken farmimg, amateur hen farming and in the cattle production as well. Because of hop stock available worldwide in last years, the use of hops is possible – based on revealed results, the use of selected variety with its specific chemical and storage stability properties and the dosage method is very important. The use of hops as nutritional additive for increasing animal health, production results and quality of animal products are very interesting especially for ecological production, where the use of nutritional additives is very limited – the use of coccidiostatics and synthetic antioxidants is very limited as well.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2011,
2012,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2011,
2012,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
