Sustainable diets and biodiversity

156

zinc but it remains the major source of intake for

these micronutrients in the rice-eating population.

3.3 Correlations among the contents of ash and

eight mineral elements in brown rice

Results of the Pearson’s correlation performed

among eight mineral element content and ash in

brown rice is given in table 4.

Table 4.Correlation among eight mineral contents

in 269 high yielding Indian rice cultivars

El. Ash Fe Zn Cu Mn Ca Mg P

Fe0.192**

Zn 0.2 3 5** 0.187*

Cu 0.71 0.4 3 2** 0.209**

Mn - 0. 097 0. 058 - 0 .1 20 0 .167*

Ca -0.018 0.1 5 9* -0.148* 0.0 57 0.1 35 *

Mg 0. 28 6** 0 .166* 0 .41 0 ** 0 .1 9 1** - 0. 008 - 0. 22 6**

P 0.1 5 2* 0.20 5 ** -0.1 5 9* 0.010 0.287** -0.10 3 0.1 56 *

K 0.212* 0.082 0.108 0.118 0.10 3 0.292** 0.21 5 * -0.100

* Significant at 0. 0 5 probability level

** Significant at 0.01 probability level

Ash correlated positively with Fe or Zn or Mg or P or

K but showed no correlation with Cu or Mn or Ca in-

dicating that all the mineral content in rice is not pos-

itively correlated with its ash content. Among the

minerals, close positive correlation was observed be-

tween the contents of Zn and Fe, Cu and Fe or Zn, Mn

and Cu, Ca and Fe or Mn, Mg and Fe or Zn or Cu, P

and Fe or Mn or Mg, K and Ca or Mg, while negative

correlation was observed between the content of Ca

and Zn, Mg and Ca, P and Zn. Jiang et al. (2007) also

observed positive correlation between Fe and Zn sug-

gesting that high iron content is accompanied by high

zinc content in rice. There were differences in the cor-

relations among other elements between the Chinese

rice genotypes and the present study which may be

due to the fact that Jiang et al. (2007) used polished

rice whereas brown rice was used in the present

study. Significant positive correlation was observed

between Mg and all other elements studied except

Mn. This may be explained by the fact that Mg regu-

lated the uptake of all other essential elements and

thus the Mg content of rice grain assumes importance

(Tucker, 1999). The mineral contents in the Indian rice

varieties are very diverse which can be explained by

the genetic characteristics of varieties and other agri-

Figure 1. Box plot showing the distribution of various amino acids in 4 2 high Yielding Indian rice varieties

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Aspartat

e

Threonin

e

Serine

Giutamat

e

Prol

ine

Gly

cine

AlanineCystin

e

Val

ine

Meth

ion

ine

Isoluc

ine

Leuc

ine

Tyrosin

e

Phenylalanine

Hist

idine Lysin

e

Arg

inin

e

/g/100g protein