This study was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding fresh Gliricidia sepium leaves as supplement to basal diet of dried cassava peel on the haematological parameters of West African Dwarf sheep and goats in a completely randomized design experiment. Twelve each of WAD sheep and goat were randomly divided into three groups of four animals per group for both sheep and goats. The three ...

INTRODUCTION Cassava is one of the few root crops known and is an important food source in many countries of Africa, Latin America and in some Asian countries. In Venezuela, for instance, the root is eaten in a number of ways such as in soups, as casabe (cassava flat cake), as naiboa (cassava with raw sugar and grated white cheese formed into a flat cake) and as buñuelos (fried cassava dough ba...

Africa produces more than 30 million tons of cassava on about 5 million hectares (6 tons per hectare). Approximately 80% of the root production and 70% of the harvested area are from Western Africa. Recent reports suggest that the ingestion of poorly processed cassava roots is associated with the incidence of an ataxic neuropathy (konzo) in African countries. When cassava-based diets are not su...

The effects of Cymbopogon citratus (lemon grass) on the detoxification of cassava tubers and the sensory evaluation of their cassava fufu products were investigated. One kilogram of freshly harvested cassava tuber was fermented with varying amounts (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 g) of lemon grass for one to five days. Fermentation resulted in a decrease in the cyanide content and this was signific...

Cassava roots have a low-protein content (0.7-2%). Amino acids such as lysine and methionine are also low, and some research reports have indicated the absence of methionine. The amino acid profiles of a common cassava cultivar and an interspecific hybrid, namely ICB 300, were determined using the computerized amino acid analyzer Hitachi L-8500. The interspecific hybrid has 10 times more lysine...

Cassava is a major factor in food security across sub-Saharan Africa. However, the crop is susceptible to losses due to biotic stresses, in particular to viruses of the genus Begomovirus (family Geminiviridae) that cause cassava mosaic disease (CMD). During the 1990s, an epidemic of CMD severely hindered cassava production across eastern and central Africa. A significant influence on the appear...

Cassava is an important food for millions of people around the world. However, cassava is deficient in protein, iron, zinc, pro-vitamin A and vitamin E. Cassava biofortified with pro-vitamin A can help reduce Vitamin A Deficiency among the undernourished communities that rely upon it for sustenance. BioCassava Plus project has developed transgenic cassava that expresses beta carotene in roots u...

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is an important crop that provides food security and income generation in many tropical countries, and is known for its adaptability to various environmental conditions. Its draft genome sequence and many expressed sequence tags are now publicly available, allowing the development of cassava polymorphism information. Here, we describe the genome-wide discovery...

Complete nucleotide sequences of the DNA-A (2800 nt) and DNA-B (2760 nt) components of a novel cassava-infecting begomovirus, South African cassava mosaic virus (SACMV), were determined and compared with various New World and Old World begomoviruses. SACMV is most closely related to East African cassava mosaic virus (EACMV) in both its DNA-A (85% with EACMV-MH and -MK) and -B (90% with EACMV-UG...

The cyanide overload of 40 cassava (gari) processing workers, 25 frequent consumers of cassava foods and 20 cigarette smokers (all Nigerians) were assessed using a new simple kit method for determination of thiocyanate (cyanide metabolite) in urine. The mean thiocyanate measured in the urine of three groups of cassava processing workers were 9.48±2.8, 8.70±2.23, and 7.46±2.57 ppm. The mean thio...