Proximate and Mineral Composition Profiling in Cowpea (Vigna unguiculate L Walp.)

Micronutrients are most important growth promoting elements for crops as well as for humans. As per some reports (Gosh, et al., 2019) more than two billion of the global populations are malnourished. Micronutrient malnutrition among the people of every age is very common in developing countries like India. Cowpea one of the vital grain legumes in India is the cheapest sources of proteins, vitamins and micronutrients and can be supplied to the people through daily diet. In this regard profiling of the proximate composition and mineral contents in seeds of diverse cowpea genotypes was done at Seed Unit, UAS, Dharwad. The results revealed significant differences for different of proximate and mineral contents of cowpea varieties evaluated. Highest protein content of 21.12% and fibre content of 11.30 % was observed in samples of PL -2 and PL-5 respectively. Fe content in cowpea variety PL-2 was found to be the highest (99.1ppm) than the rest of minerals viz., Zinc (56.3 ppm) and manganese content (9.8 ppm) among the genotypes indicating that cowpea is good sources for these micronutrients viz., iron, zinc and manganese. Of all the minerals evaluated, concentration of iron (Fe) was found to be the highest in all the cowpea genotypes, thus indicating that the cowpea genotypes have ability to improve the haematology indicators of cowpea consumers. Thus, these cowpea genotypes serve as source of useful genetic resources for cultivar development for grain nutrients composition.