Identifying bread wheat lines for high zinc, iron and low phytate concentration

Abstract

Micronutrient malnutrition, “hidden hunger” affects about two billion people worldwide. It is responsible for escalated morbidity and mortality rates, reduced children’s cognitive ability, diminished labor power productivity and higher chronic diseases prevalence. zinc deficiency causes impairment of physical growth, immune system and learning ability, increased risk of infections, DNA damage and cancer development. Meanwhile, iron deficiency results in tissue hypoxia and heart failure, maternal anemia, stunted and unhealthy babies (born from iron deficient mothers), children with poor attention spans, impaired fine motor skills, less capacity for memory and less work productivity. Nutrition plays a key role in improving quality of agricultural produce and well-being and productivity of the society, hence crop breeding using genetic bio fortification is best option as it reaches every house hold using the seed for cultivation specially bread wheat seed is the most common cultivated cereal in different parts of the country, thus iron and zinc bio fortified wheat will reach every household within the baked bread, thus harvest plus wheat samples provided by Kulumsa agricultural research center, wheat breeding program and the appropriate level of the micro nutrients iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) determined by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) and with the anti-nutritional factors (phytate and tannin) were also assessed using UV-Vis spectrophotometer and with respect to upper limit Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) values per day without any possible effects of overdose intake 8HPAN121(Fe,16.94 mg/ 100g; Zn,1.218 mg/100g), 8HPAN19 (Fe,16.26 mg/ 100g; Zn,1.634 mg/100g), 7HPAN31(Fe,15.64 mg/100 g; Zn,1.97 mg/100 g) and 7HPYT44 (Fe, 17.36 mg/ 100g; Zn, 2.29 mg/ 100 g) of the harvest plus bio fortified wheat had shown promising results since the iron contents had shown to be safer to be consumed twice per day per 100 gram bread considering other sources of iron in day to day food consumed, relatively better zinc content and lower phytate contents consequently be a better candidate for parental cross breeding, adoptability and stability studies in different agro ecological zones and seasons.