Genetic variability for mineral nutrients in lentil

Abstract

The present study was conducted to analyze the concentration of 8 important mineral nutrients namely calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), selenium (Se), and cadmium (Cd) among the seeds of 96 accessions of lentil including breeding lines, varieties, parental lines and exotic lines. The mineral concentrations was ranged from 128 to 494 mg Ca, 4771 to 8927 for K, 140 to 829 mg for Mg, 3907 to 2762 mg for P, 5 to 10 mg for Cu, 10 to 24 mg for Mn, 240 to -630 μg for Se and 0 to 12 μg for Cd. Thus a range of significant variability was observed among the studied genotypes for these minerals. These results indicate that existing variability for these minerals can be utilized for developing high quality cultivars in lentil and can also be used in mapping and tagging of genes controlling Se and other minerals content.