González et al., 2002. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 14 (6)

A growth trial was conducted with a total of 40 crossbred castrate males and female pigs (1:1) of approximately 35 kg initial live weight distributed at random into five treatments to study the effect of feeding ad libitum diets, in which maize and sorghum were substituted by graded levels of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) root meal (SPRM, 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% respectively).

Animals receiving the diet with no cereals had the poorer performance traits as compared with those from the control diet (SPRM, 0%) whereas those fed graded levels of SPRM showed an intermediate response, during growing (35-60 kg) and finishing (60-90 kg) phases. Overall, SPRM had no influence on feed intake and very little effect on daily gain, but  feed conversion ratio was negatively affected by the presence of SPRM (R2 = 0.81). Results from pigs with 75% of substitution of cereals in the diet were similar to the others with lower levels of sweet potato in the feed. There was no effect of treatment on carcass traits. An increase in pancreas weight found in pigs fed graded levels of SPRM suggests that some anti-nutritional factor could have negatively affected performance traits of animals through some disturbance of digestive processes.

It is suggested that sweet potato root meal can provide 54and 58% of the diet during the growing and the finishing phase, respectively, making it possible to replace 75% of the cereal components.