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M. MARCONE, Department of Food Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G2W1, Canada

The development of grain amaranth with enhanced characteristics for bakery and nutraceutical applications has been aided by the fact that there is a great deal of genetic variation available within the species. Although several amaranth species do exist, a few wild species--including Amaranthus pumilus (Seabeach amaranth)--are quickly being extirpated from their native habitats and, therefore, may reduce the overall level of biodiversity available to plant breeders for the amelioration of present amaranth cultivars. With fewer than 55 remaining populations left in the wild (or approximately 1,000 individuals known) A. pumilus has received federal protection as a threatened plant species under the Endangered Species Act. If not driven to extinction, the seabeach amaranth may potentially serve as a useful plant resource in future breeding programs due to such favorable genetic traits as tolerance to high soil salinity and large seed size.

The objective of this first-ever study was to investigate the chemical composition/components of its seed and compare it to the more commonly cultivated A. hypochondriacus while simultaneously attempting to raise public awareness to the importance of this threatened species and, therefore, protect it from reaching extinction.

Various official AOAC chemical analyses were performed on both A. pumilus and hypochondriacus grown under identical environmental conditions.

A. pumilus was found to possess a larger and more desirable seed size and weight (2-3 fold higher), permitting greater biomass production in addition to lower levels (one-half) of free carbohydrate. In addition to higher edible-oil content, its lower saturated to unsaturated ratio make it potentially a better source of nutritional oil. In addition to the two-fold higher quantity of vitamin E, the higher levels of squalene also found may one day serve as a renewable crop source of this compound and may, hopefully, diminish the world’s dependence upon marine animals.

This study clearly reveals that much genetic diversity exists between both species indicating that potential breeding possibilities for improvement of more commonly cultivated amaranth lines do exist.