Bench Mark Values for Grain Iron Content in Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.)

Abstract

Finger millet is an excellent source of mineral elements specifically calcium and iron. The iron content in the ruling variety, GPU-28 is 5.47 mg/100g. Identification of germplasm lines superior to GPU-28 would help in identifying nutritionally superior genotypes and also to serve as genetic resource for recombination breeding. For such screening, use of appropriate procedure and bench mark values are highly useful. Hence, the present study was conducted to confirm the estimation procedure and to arrive at bench mark values for grain iron content in popular varieties. The elemental analysis was carried out in two laboratories. The results of the study indicated a positive correlation between the two laboratories for iron content and confirmed the appropriateness of procedure used for digestion and AAS estimation. Among the varieties, the iron content was significantly superior in GPU-67 (6.52 mg/100g) compared to the GPU-28 and hence, this variety and grain iron content can be considered as a variety with bench mark value for screening large number of germplasm lines.