Research Article Influence of Albizia lebbeck Saponin and Its Fractions on In Vitro Gas Production Kinetics, Rumen Methanogenesis, and Rumen Fermentation Characteristics Sunil Kumar Sirohi, 1 Navneet Goel, 1 and Nasib Singh 1,2 1 Dairy Cattle Nutrition Division, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana 132001, India 2 Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, Punjab 144411, India Correspondence should be addressed to Sunil Kumar Sirohi; sirohisk@gmail.com Received 26 October 2013; Accepted 24 December 2013; Published 4 March 2014 Academic Editors: A. Paz Silva and W. Yang Copyright © 2014 Sunil Kumar Sirohi et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. he present study was undertaken to investigate the efect of crude seed powder (CSP) and gross saponins extract (GSE) of seeds of Albizia lebbeck on antimicrobial activity by taking two Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus), two Gram- negative (Escherichia coli and Salmonella Typhi) bacteria, and two fungi species (Aspergillus niger and Candida butyric) were taken at 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 g levels using agar well difusion method. Zone of inhibition was increased with increasing of concentration of CSP and saponins which indicates that Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli), Gram-positive bacteria (B. cereus), and A. niger were signiicantly susceptible to inhibition. Another experiment was conducted to study the efect of GSE and saponins fraction A and B of A. lebbeck supplementation at 6% on DM basis on methane production and other rumen fermentation parameters using in vitro gas production test, by taking three diferent type diets, that is, high iber diet (D1, 60R : 40C), medium iber diet (D2, 50R : 50C), and low iber diet (D3, 40R : 60C). Signiicant ( ≤ 0.05) increase was seen in IVDMD, methane production; however ammonia nitrogen concentration decreased as compared to control. he methane production was reduced in a range between 12 and 49% by saponin supplemented diets except in case of GSE in D2. Sap A showed the highest methane reduction per 200 mg of truly digested substrate (TDS) than other treatment groups. Results in relation with quantiication of methanogens and protozoa by qPCR indicated the decreasing trend with saponins of A. lebbek in comparison with control except total methanogen quantiied using mcr-A based primer. 1. Introduction Methane production during anaerobic fermentation of nutri- ents in the rumen is an essential metabolic but nutrition- ally wasteful process which represents 2 to 15% of gross energy loss [1, 2]. Livestock contributes 12–18% to the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions depending upon emission attributes [3, 4] and accounts for about 37% of the total anthropogenic methane [3]. herefore, reducing methane production is an important goal of ruminant nutritionists not only for reducing greenhouse gases and global warming but also for improving the eiciency of animal production. Recently, researchers have emphasized on the reduction of methane emission by using ionophores, organic acids, fatty acids, plant extracts, and halogenated methane analogues could be used to decrease ruminal methane production [5–12]. Plant secondary metabolites, that is, saponins, tannins, and essential oils have also been widely studied for their beneicial efect on ruminants and several workers reported that saponins and plants rich in saponins decreased the methane production in the rumen [11, 13–15]. Hence, the present investigation was carried out to assess the efect of gross as well as pure saponins fraction of Albizia lebbeck on antimicrobial potential on selected bacte- rial and fungal pathogens, rumen fermentation characteristic, and antimethanogenesis. Hindawi Publishing Corporation ISRN Veterinary Science Volume 2014, Article ID 498218, 10 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/498218