GENETIC DIVERSITY FOR MINERAL ELEMENT IN SEEDS OF TURKISH OAT LANDRACES

Oat grain is an important cereal in the human diet and as an animal feed. It is cultivated in many regions of the world. This study was carried out to determine the variability in the element content of these oat gene sources collected from the West and Middle Black Sea Region of Turkey. Two hundred and fifty-six oat genotypes were examined under this study. The mean of mineral elements in landraces and commercial cultivars were 40.39 g kg(-1) and 36.16 g kg(-1) for K, 23.90 g kg(-1) and 28.51 g kg(-1) for P, 12.47 g kg(-1) and 10.99 g kg(-1) for Mg, 10.92 g kg(-1) and 10.96 g kg(-1) for Ca, 2.58 g kg-1 and 2.36 g kg(-1) for Na, 54.70 mg kg(-1) and 53.02 mg kg(-1) for Fe, 32.08 mg kg(-1) and 23.51 mg kg(-1) for Mn, 25.39 mg kg(-1) and 24.05 mg kg(-1) for Zn and 8.26 mg kg(-1) and 8.07 mg kg(-1) for Cu, respectively. The ranges of mineral elements in the landraces were significantly higher than those in the commercial cultivars. The contributions of the first and second principal components (PC1 and PC2) to the total variation were 43.0% and 15.6%, respectively. These results indicate that examined oat landraces can provide a good source of diversity in mineral elements concentration and could be successfully used in biofortification programs.