Abstract
Protein content was used as an indicator of environmental conditions for a study on varietal and environmental variation in proximate composition, minerals, amino acids and certain antinutrients of field peas. Four field pea varieties, each with three levels of protein content, were selected. Crude protein content overall ranged from 20.2 to 26.7%. Analysis of variance showed that both variety and environmental conditions had a significant effect on starch, acid detergent fibre (ADF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and fat content, but ash content was only affected by variety. Significant varietal and environmental differences in potassium (K), manganese (Mn) and phosphorus (P) were noted. Calcium (Ca) and copper (Cu) showed significant varietal differences, while iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg) and zinc (Zn) had significant environmental differences. Environmental conditions showed significant effects on alanine, glycine, isoleucine, lysine and threonine content. Variety had a significant effect on sucrose, raffinose and phytic acid content, whereas environmental conditions had an influence on trypsin inhibitor activity (TIA). The major pea components protein and starch were inversely correlated. ADF, NDF, Fe, Mg, Zn and the amino acid arginine were positively correlated with protein content. The amino acids glycine, histidine, isoleucine, lysine and threonine were negatively correlated with protein content. It was found that tryptophan was the most deficient amino acid and the sulphurβcontaining amino acids were the second limiting amino acids in peas. Raffinose was positively correlated with sucrose but negatively correlated with verbascose. There were significant correlations between mineral contents and some of the proximate components. Copyright Β© 2004 Society of Chemical Industry