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A rapid screening method for grain iron content in Pearl Millet

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/1143/
 
Title A rapid screening method for grain iron content in Pearl Millet
 
Creator Velu, G
Kulkarni, V N
Muralidharan, V
Rai, K N
Longvah, T
Sahrawat, K L
Raveendran, T S
 
Subject Millets
 
Description Enhancing grain iron (Fe) content is one of the effective
ways of increasing the Fe intake and reducing the
incidence of Fe-deficiency anaemia (Welch and Graham
2002). Large genetic variability for grain Fe content has
been reported in many crops (Graham et al. 1999). Pearl
millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.] is a major source
of dietary energy for millions of people living in the arid
and semi-arid tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It has
on an average 50 mg kg-1 of grain Fe, which is more than
wheat, rice and maize. Studies with limited germplasm
have shown large genetic variability for this trait,
indicating good opportunities to select and/or breed
millet genotypes with still higher grain Fe (Jambunathan
and Subramanian 1988; Abdalla et al. 1998). The bottleneck
in this process is the high cost of Fe estimation. At
present Fe estimation is done with digests using Atomic
Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) and Inductively
Coupled Plasma-Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry
(ICP), which require relatively expensive instruments
and are time-consuming. These chemical analyses would
be prohibitively costly for evaluating a large number of
progenies during the course of a breeding program. A
procedure based on Perls’ Prussian blue stain was
proposed for rapid screening of grain Fe content in rice
(Prom-u-thai et al. 2003; Krishnan et al. 2003) which
involves scoring color intensity in the embryo of cut and
treated seeds (with 2% Prussian blue) through a stereomicroscope.
The objective of this research was to simplify
the method and assess its effectiveness in screening for
grain Fe content in pearl millet.
 
Date 2006
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/1143/1/ISMN-47_158-161_2006.pdf
Velu, G and Kulkarni, V N and Muralidharan, V and Rai, K N and Longvah, T and Sahrawat, K L and Raveendran, T S (2006) A rapid screening method for grain iron content in Pearl Millet. International Sorghum and Millets Newsletter, 47. pp. 158-161.