Evaluation of Elevated CO2 on Nutritional Quality of Green Gram for the Management of Callosobruchus chinensis (L.) during Storage

An experiment was conducted to study the assessment of nutritional quality parameters of green gram treated with elevated levels of carbon dioxide to manage Callosobruchus infestation during 2020-21 at Seed Entomology Laboratory, Seed Research and Technology Centre, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, India. Nutritional quality of Callosobruchus chinensis infested green gram seeds exposed to four different concentrations of CO2 viz., 20, 40, 60 and 80 per cent was studied. The results revealed that the 80 per cent CO2 concentration maintained high carbohydrate content (62.93 per cent) and crude fat (4.51 per cent) besides less protein (25.26 per cent) content after two months of storage. The 80per cent CO2 treatment was consistently found to be the best treatment when it was retested in bulk quantity (25 kg of seed) after two months of storage period. High carbohydrate, crude fat content and low protein content were observed in all the CO2 treatments (20, 40, 60 and 80 per cent) when compared to untreated control. These findings suggest that using elevated CO2 levels could be a viable alternative to synthetic pesticides chemical fumigants for preserving green gram during storage.