Five different species of dried ground aquatic plants were tested for their nutritive value in egg-strain male chicks against controls comprising a corn, soybean meal diet containing graded levels of dehydrated alfalfa meal. The experimental diets met N.R.C. requirements for all nutrients and were kept isonitrogenous. An attempt was also made to keep calcium and available phosphorus levels at about 1.0% and 0.5%, respectively. The test plant materials and alfalfa were included at 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0% levels in the diets. The diets were fed ad libitum to the chicks from day-old to four weeks of age. Weight gain and feed efficiency were used as criteria for comparison of nutritive value between the controls and the test groups. No diet containing any level of dehydrated alfalfa or aquatic plant meal gave results which were statistically significantly superior to the corn, soybean meal diet with no added green feed supplement. On the other hand, only diets containing 5.0 and 10.0% pondweed, and 5.0 and 10.0% milfoil produced weight gains at 4 weeks of age which tended to be lower than the corn, soybean meal control diet, statistically so in the case of the 10.0% milfoil diet. There were no real significant weight or feed efficiency effects of vallisneria or duckweed as compared with dehydrated alfalfa. Alfalfa was considerably lower in ash content as compared to the water plants. The gross energy of the green plants had a high negative correlation with the ash content (r = −0.99).
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Muztar et al. (1976) studied this question.