When bananas are grown for fruit, the bigger part of the plant gets wasted. In tropical areas, producers use the pseudo-stems and leaves as feed for cattle. An experiment was performed to determine the potential value of the banana plant nutrient availability for ruminants. Fifteen adult plants were randomly harvested from a fodder bank located at the University of Costa Rica’s Alfredo Volio Mata Experimental Station during the rainy season of 2012. Each plant was harvested at 20–25 cm above ground and divided into 5 sections for sampling (base, center and tip of the pseudo-stem and lamina and petioles of the leaves), all 15 samples from each portion were dried, ground and incubated by duplicate within 2 Jersey-Reyna ruminally fistulated cows with results analyzed using the Marquadt algorithm. Values ranging from 18.38% to 47.43% were found for the percentage of soluble fraction, from 33.45% to 45.76% for the degradable fraction, from 1.65%/h to 7.51%/h for the degradation speed and from 64.14% to 82.86% for the potentially degradable percentage, depending on the plant part. According to the obtained results, pseudo-stems have better degradability values than leaves and may be used as a feed source on cattle diets where the material is available. Table 1. Ruminal degradability constants on a Musa sp. fodder bank

Plant section	Soluble fraction, %	Degradable fraction, %	Degradation speed, %/h	Potentially degradable fraction, %
Pseudo-stem base	47.43a	35.43b	0.07518a	82.86a
Pseudo-stem center	42.51a	34.13b	0.06512ab	76.64a
Pseudo-stem tip	44.77a	33.45b	0.05824abc	78.22a
Petiole	33.34b	38.85ab	0.06689ab	72.19b
Lamina	18.38c	45.76ab	0.01653d	64.14c

^a–cIndicate statistical differences (P < 0.05) within a column.