Iron and Zinc Variability in Twenty Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Genotypes

摘要

More than half of the world's population, especially women and children in the developing countries suffer from micronutrient malnutrition resulting from the consumption of diets; deficient in iron, zinc and vitamin A. micronutrient malnutrition problems increased the interest of researchers to increase the mineral contents (Fe and Zn) in cereals to ensure adequate attainment of dietary minerals in all individuals. A lot of variability does exist for micronutrients (Fe, Zn, Vitamin A, etc.) content and bioavailability in many crops including rice. The first pre-requisite for initiating at breeding programme to develop mineral-rich genotypes, is to screen available germplasm and identify the source of genetic variation for the target trait. The current study was conducted to assess the variability for iron and zinc content in dehusked rice grains and leaf tissue in 20 rice genotypes to identify mineral-rich genotypes. A large variation was observed for iron and zinc contents in dehusked grains and leaf tissue. In dehusked grains the iron and zinc contents ranged between 9.6-440 mu g/g and 9.9-39.4 mu g/g, respectively. In leaf tissue the iron and zinc contents ranged between 127.3-659.3 mu g/g and 42.1-63.4 mu g/g, respectively. The grain/leaf ratio of iron and zinc content ranged between 0.03-1.56 and 0.16-0.87, respectively. Some genotypes (HKR 95-157, Palman 579, TNG 67 and HBC 19) had good seed/leaf ratio for iron and zinc and these genotypes can be used for breeding to develop mineral efficient rice.