Dataset Information

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) in a refugee context in East Africa: Kitchen gardening helps with mineral provision.

ABSTRACT: Kitchen gardening is considered a way to reconnect with agriculture and complement the cereal-based relief food offered to refugees in East Africa. This work aimed at profiling mineral content of okra in four refugee camps and settlements located in Ethiopia and Uganda and its contribution to adequate intake (AIs) or recommended dietary allowances (RDAs) for young children and pregnant and lactating women (PLW). The study also evaluated the applicability of portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) as compared with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for mineral profiling of okra powder samples. The contents of minerals (mg kg^-1) from the ICP-MS readings were in the following ranges: K (14,385-33,294), Ca (2610-14,090), P (3178-13,248), Mg (3896-7986), Cu (3.81-19.3), Fe (75.7-1243), Zn (33-141) and Mn (23.1-261). Regardless of geographic origin, at low-end consumption probability (17 g day^-1 for young children and 68 g day^-1 for PLW), okra could contribute ˂ 15% (2.7-12.9%) AI for macro-minerals (K and Ca). In addition, the contributions to RDA values for Fe and Zn, elements of known public health interest, ranged from 4.5 to 34.7% for young children. Interestingly, regression lines revealed strong agreement between ICP-MS and PXRF readings for Mn and Zn, with R² values > 0.91. This information is useful in support of nutrition-sensitive kitchen gardening programs through scaling culturally important crops in refugee settings.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42452-021-04898-6.

SUBMITTER: Woldetsadik D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8689287 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Okra is grown globally for its nutritional and economic benefits. Okra seeds ensure continuous production of the crop but challenges of poor production, adaptability and management may not allow the seeds to express their full potential. There are two seed production systems in Cameroon; the informal and formal. In Buea, the informal seed system is used by most farmers for seed production/utilization and farmers are reluctant to use hybrid seeds. This study aimed to assess the informal seed system of okra and evaluate the adaptability of seed produce from informal and formal systems in Buea. A survey and a field experiment were carried out. The designs for the survey and field experiment were stratified random sampling and randomized complete block design respectively. Data collection for the survey was done using questionnaires and other data collection instruments, while for the field experiment, data was collected on germination, vegetative growth parameters, incidence and severity of pests / diseases and yield. Data analysis for the survey was done using descriptive statistics, while data from the field experiment was done using a two-way ANOVA test and treatment means compared using the Tukey test at 5% probability. Results from the survey showed that women (60%) were mostly involved in seed production by mass selection from two landraces identified. Preservation of seeds was mostly done with the use of wood ash (58%) and insects were the major postharvest pest (76%). For the field experiment, at 66 DAP, Yellen recorded the highest significant number of leaves (13.417), leaf area (771.4 cm2) and the number of branches (5.64). Clemson spineless recorded the highest significant incidence (89.9%) and severity for pests / diseases while Kirikou and Landrace recorded the least incidence (0.0%) and severity. Kirikou recorded the highest significant yield (6.0 tons/ha), followed by Landrace (5.3 tons/ha). These findings reveal the performance of the landrace and provide reasons why farmers in Buea are reluctant to use hybrid okra seeds. The Landrace should certainly have adaptable genes, coupled with the autogamous nature of okra which encourages inbreeding for homozygous traits, which are dominant in expression compared to heterozygous traits.

Project description:As climate changes increase, drought stress is becoming a problem for all major horticultural crops; among them is okra (Abelmoschus esculentus). Despite its superior resilience to heat stress and high nutritional content, it is still underutilized in contrast to other vegetable crops. Moreover, the drought-resistant and drought-sensitive genotypes of okra are also not well known and require further exploration to improve their productivity. To investigate this in more detail, we performed comparative physiological and large-scale chloroplast proteomics on drought-stressed genotypes of okra. We evaluated four major genotypes of okra, viz., NS7774, NS7772, Green Gold, and OH3312 for drought resilient rootstock. The physiological modulations demonstrated a significant change by 50-76% in biomass, net-photosynthetic machinery, water transport, and absorption both in early and late stages of drought stress compared to well-watered crops in all genotypes. Maximum oxidative damage due to drought stress was observed for the genotypes NS7772, Green Gold and OH3312 as depicted by H2O2 and O2- determination. Greater oxidative stress was correlated to lesser antioxidant activity and expression of antioxidant enzymes, such as catalase and ascorbate peroxidase under stress in okra genotypes. The overall photosynthetic pigments, such as total chlorophyll, and total carotenoid content, were also decreased, and stomatal guard cells were disrupted and appeared closed compared to the control for the above three mentioned genotypes, except NS7774. A subsequent tissue-specific proteome analysis of chloroplasts and thylakoids analyzed by BN-PAGE (blue native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) revealed either over or under expression of specific proteins, such as ATPase, PSI, PSII core dimer, PSII monomer and ATP synthase. The expression of multiprotein complex proteins, including PSII-core dimer and PSII-core monomer, was slightly higher for the genotype NS7774 when compared to three other genotypes for both 5 and 10 days of drought stress. Further identification of specific proteins obtained in second dimension BN-PAGE provided descriptive detail of seven proteins involved in drought resistance across all genotypes. The identified proteins are majorly involved in photosynthesis under drought stress, suggesting NS7774 as a drought tolerant genotype. Further, the proteomic results were confirmed using Immunoblot by selecting specific protein such as PsaA. Overall, from our physiological modulations and chloroplast proteomics in all genotypes, we summarized NS7774 as a resilient rootstock and the other three genotypes (NS7772, OH3312, and Green Gold) as sensitive ones.

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Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) in a refugee context in East Africa: Kitchen gardening helps with mineral provision.

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