Biofortification of mungbean using marker assisted selection

Micronutrient deficiency leads to malnutrition or "hidden hunger". There is an international effort to breed staple food crops for enhanced micronutrient content through CGIAR. However, mungbean is not included in their priority crop list even then it is very important as it is being consumed on large scale by Indian population. Iron and Zinc are two important micronutrients that required for maintaining metabolic regulation and proper organ function. Thus, there is a need to improve mungbean varieties with high iron and zinc content. An experiment was conducted during Kharif 2011 to assess predictability of performance through stability parameters for seed yield/ plant, protein content, iron and zinc content of 12 mungbean genotypes tested at two locations in 14 environments. Pooled analysis of variance indicated highly significant differences among varieties for all traits. The partitioning of G x E interaction into linear and non-linear components indicated that both predictable and unpredictable components shared the interaction. Deviation from regression was highly significant revealing unpredictable response of these genotypes and better suitability with better environments.