Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment

Assessment of Tunisian Trigonella foenum graecum diversity using seed vitamin B6, B1, B9 and C contents

Author(s):

Nidhal Marzougui ^1*, Ferdaous Guasmi ¹, Mounira Mkaddem ², Anissa Boubaya ¹, Abdessalam Mrabet ¹, Walid Elfalleh¹, Ali Ferchichi ¹, Mohamed Beji ³

Recieved Date: 2008-09-19, Accepted Date: 2008-12-13

Abstract:

Trigonella foenum graecum is used as spice and forage, and it is known for its therapeutic effects in traditional medicine. The seeds are rich in vitamins A, B and C. This work aims to study the diversity of 38 Tunisian Trigonella foenum graecum cultivars using seed vitamin B6, B1, B9 and C contents. Cultivars were collected from upper semi arid, sub humid and lower arid Tunisian bioclimatic stages. Vitamin contents of the seeds were analysed by HPLC. A variance analysis was assured with SPSS 16.0. Cultivar classification was obtained after the calculation of Mahalanobis distances between the pairs of cultivars by XlStat software. A principal compound analysis was done by StatBox software to verify the dendrogram clustering. Results showed significant variations in vitamins B6 (P<0.01), B9 (P<0.01), B1 (P<0.01) and C (P<0.01) between the studied cultivars. Dendrogram analysis revealed three clusters. The first cluster had quantities of vitamin B6 near to 0.0189 mg/g, B1 near to 0.0001 mg/g, B9 near to 0.002 mg/g and C near to 0.0025 mg/g. The second one recorded quantities (mg/g) of 0.029 for B6, 0.00026 for B9 and 0.0026 for C and no detectable quantities of B1. The last cultivar cluster reached vitamin contents (mg/g) of 0.068 for B6, 0.00019 for B9 and 0.0014 for C and no detectable quantities of B1. Principal component analysis confirmed this clustering and showed the same three clusters that were obtained by the dendrogram. Significant correlation between Mahalanobis distances matrix and geographic distances matrix was revealed by the test of Mantel (r = 0.222; p = 0.1×10^-3 < 0.05).

Keywords:

Trigonella foenum graecum, fenugreek, diversity, Tunisia, seeds, HPLC, classification, test of Mantel, vitamins B6, B1, B9 and C

---

Journal: Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment
Year: 2009
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
Category: Food and Health
Pages: 56-61

---

Full text for Subscribers

---

Information:

Note to users

The requested document is freely available only to subscribers/registered users with an online subscription to the Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment. If you have set up a personal subscription to this title please enter your user name and password. All abstracts are available for free.

Article purchasing

If you like to purchase this specific document such as article, review or this journal issue, contact us. Specify the title of the article or review, issue, number, volume and date of the publication. Software and compilation, Science & Technology, all rights reserved. Your use of this website details or service is governed by terms of use. Authors are invited to check from time to time news or information.

---

Purchase this Article:   20 Purchase PDF Order Reprints for 15

---

Share this article :