Effect of Zinc Enrichment on Growth and Nutritional Quality in Pea Sprouts

Abstract

Zinc (Zn) is essential in plant nutrition and a fundamental component. Zn deficiency causes 450,000 deaths of children under 5 years of age every year. The slight lack of Zn leads to more diseases in humans, such as anorexia, loss of appetite, smell and taste failure. Thus, biofortification is used to provide the Zn nutritional status of plant food. The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of exogenous application of Zn by soaking and spraying on Zn contents, nutrition composition and antioxidant capacity in sprout. The results showed that plant growth was gradually increased from 10 to 50 mg L-1 of Zn; the nutrient values were also incremented by Zn of certain concentrations; and applied Zn treatment improved the total antioxidant capacity and contents of free amino acid. However, when Zn was over 50 mg L-1, it resulted in reductions of nutrition value and antioxidant capacity, inhibiting the sprout growth. These results indicated that the optimal dose of Zn by soaking or spraying was 40-50 mg L-1; and the impact of spraying was better than that of soaking. It was effective to enrich Zn content in certain extent by soaking or spraying, which could increase the nutrition value and antioxidant capacity as functional foods.