Abstract

Amaranthus is one of the orphan crops that have been reported to be rich in macro and micro-nutrients as well as protein content and hence able to contribute significant quantities to human diets. Hence, it is important to profile the nutritional traits in the leaves of Amaranthus to enable the selection for breeding. The study was conducted at the Roodeplaat Research Farm of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in South Africa. The analysis of variance showed significant differences for all mineral elements indicating that wide genetic differences existed among the test genotypes. The concentrations of mineral elements (mg/100 g) determined were in the ranges Na (54.90–519.780), K (257.00–4089.46), Mg (1304.55–2468.67), Ca (2051.340–3875.59), Mn (4.5513.96), Fe (63.57–681.28), Cu (0.89–2.10), Zn (3.61–7.49), P (460.80–765.80) and Al (149.54976.65). The protein content varied from 17.10 to 28.97%. A high level of heritability coupled with the genetic advance was obtained for most of the traits, which would result in successful advancement and crosses for those nutritional traits in the breeding programme towards utilization of underutilized plant species for biofortification.