The Importance Of Lentil In Neolithic Agriculture

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1. Introduction

Lentil (Lens culinaris subsp. culinaris) is a autogamous crop (2n = 2x = 14) belonging to the Vicieae tribe in Fabaceae family. The domestication of lentil occurred, together with that of emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch and flax, during the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, which is believed to have taken place around the 8th and 7th millennia BC in the Eastern Mediterranean (Zohary and Hopf, 1973). Lentil spread rapidly with that of Neolithic agriculture to the Nile Valley, Central Asia and Europe. It was part of Harappen crop assemblage in the Indian subcontinent from 2250 to 1750 BC (Zohary and Hopf, 1993). After 1500 AD, the Spanish introduced lentil to South …show more content…

However, millions of people, typically in poorer developing countries rely upon staple foods to fill their stomach. These foods do not provide them required micronutrients. Micronutrient malnutrition, also known as “hidden hunger” is one of the major alarming problems in the developing world, affecting an estimated three billion people (Bouis, et al. 2011). Nutritious food is too expensive and/or sometimes unavailable. Nearly one third of world population suffers from hidden hunger that is caused by a meager amount of micronutrients in their diets. Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals that are essential for prosperous health. When they do not get adequate micronutrients, children’s growth can be stunted, and they can even go blind. This reduces their prospects for healthy and productive lives. Micronutrients are essential for children to learn, grow and build healthy immune systems. Micronutrient malnutrition even affects adults as they can repeatedly fall ill or be too weak to work and women may die during childbirth. In India around 30% of the population is malnourished which account 32% of total malnourished population in the world (Akhtar, et al., 2013). Micronutrient malnutrition mainly include Iron deficiency, Zinc deficiency, Vit-A deficiency, among these zinc and iron deficiencies are a growing public health and socioeconomic issues. Anemia, which is …show more content…

Lentil is promising crop with potential for area expansion and productivity enhancement. Indigenous lentil being ‘microsperma’ and ‘pilosae’ type has narrow genetic base and its broadening is essential for the varietal improvement. Since improved cultivars are frequently used as parental materials in hybridization programs, an understanding of the genetic diversity for grain iron and zinc concentration among globally diverse lentil genotypes and their stability across environments, would be of immense value for streamlining and further improvement of lentil programs. Development of new cultivars with high iron and zinc concentration levels could be facilitated by the use of marker-assisted selection and precision of marker-assisted selection is based on identification of markers which are tightly linked to target loci. Published information on genetic variability as well as G × E interaction for grain iron and zinc concentration in lentil is very mearge and as of our best knowledge no one in world has identified molecular marker linked to grain iron and zinc concentration in lentil. Thus, the present study was undertaken with following

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