Reetika Mahajan¹ , Sajad Majeed Zargar¹ , Aziz Mujtaba Aezum² , Sufia Farhat¹ , Mudasir Gani³ , Aftab Hussain I.S⁴ , Ganesh Kumar Agrawal⁵ , Randeep Rakwal^5,6

1. School of Biotechnology, S K University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, Chatha, Jammu, J&K-180009, India
2. Department of Soil Science, MRCFC, Khudwani, S K University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Srinagar, J&K-192101, India
3. Division of Entomology, S K University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, Chatha, Jammu, J&K-180009, India
4. Department of Crop Physiology, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore-65, India
5. Research Laboratory for Biotechnology and Biochemistry (RLABB), Kathmandu, Nepal
6. Organization for Educational Initiatives, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8577, Japan
Author    Correspondence author
Legume Genomics and Genetics, 2015, Vol. 6, No. 2   doi: 10.5376/lgg.2015.06.0002
Received: 04 Jan., 2015    Accepted: 15 Feb., 2015    Published: 26 Feb., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Mahajan et al., 2015, Evaluation of Iron, Zinc, and Protein Contents of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Genotypes: A collection from Jammu & Kashmir, India, Legume Genomics and Genetics, Vol.6, No.2, 1-7 (doi: 10.5376/lgg.2015.06.0002)

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris. L), is the most important legume crop, rich in high-quality protein, energy, fiber and micronutrients especially iron, zinc, and pro-vitamin A. High genetic diversity is known to exist among bean genotypes for micronutrient densities. Considering these facts and the status of micronutrient malnutrition in the developing countries, we have evaluated the seeds of 51 common bean genotypes collected from different locations of Jammu and Kashmir, with the major objective of identifying genotypes with high protein and micronutrient contents. Results revealed that the variation in the iron (Fe) content was very high ranging from 0.71 mg to 7.22 mg 100g^-1, and the zinc (Zn) content varied from 0.43 mg to 1.93 mg 100g^-1. The variation in protein content was also very high ranging from 7.2% to 31.6%. No correlation was found for Fe, Zn, and protein contents. This variability implies that, the screened genotypes could serve as a source for breeding new varieties with improved biochemical and nutritional traits and could be highly suited to meet specific dietary requirements.

Micronutrient; Malnutrition; Fe; Zn; Protein; Common bean