Abstract
Maize is the most widely distributed crop of the world, cultivated in tropics, sub-tropics and temperate regions in almost all the conditions of irrigated to semi-arid. It is, after wheat and rice, the most important cereal grain, providing nutrients for humans. In India, 52% of maize produced is used as poultry feed, about 24% as food, 11% as livestock feed, 11% in the wet milling industry and the rest for breweries and seed with 1% each. With the increasing production and productivity of maize, in some manner or another, every Indian's life is touched by one of our most abundant renewable resources, corn starch. From the clothing we wear to the food on our table, corn starch is a component of tens of thousands of manufactured products that define our modern lifestyle. The starch is made of two components: the linear polymer of glucose chain, amylose and amylopectin, the branched polymer of glucose units. In normal maize, the proportion of amylose to amylopectin is approximately in the ratio 25:75. However, maize having higher amylopectin content is termed as waxy maize, whereas, germplasm with more than 30% of amylose is called amylose extender (a.e.) lines. Both waxy as well as a.e. lines have different industrial applications. Waxy maize is highly regarded for making jellies, whereas, a.e. maize is mainly used for making starch threads. Keeping this in view the present study was planned to evaluate the carbohydrate profile of 28 elite maize germplasms. The seeds were ground to powder and analyzed for total starch, amylose in starch and amylopectin in starch. A significant variation was observed in the total starch content. It varied from 53.84 (WOSC) to 75.06 (Hybrid-9471). Amylose in starch showed a wide variability ranging from 2.81 (EC6200071) to 55.82 (African Tall), whereas amylopectin content also exhibited vast variation ranging from 44.18 (African Tall) to 97.19 (EC6200071). The results showed that the germplasm is highly important in terms of genetic variability of the carbohydrate profile and could effectively be exploited for the development of waxy as well as a.e. maize to meet the ever increasing demand of the maize industry in the changing scenario.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call