Nutritional quality of Arvi (Colocasia esculenta L.) and ghandiyali (Alocasia sp.) corm collections

The study aimed at nutritional evaluation of seventeen corm collections of Colocasia and Alocasia grown under mid hills of Himachal Pradesh during 1996–97 revealed wide genotypic variability in respect of moisture, protein, total mineral, crude fat, carbohydrate, crude fibres, starch, total sugars, reducing sugars and non reducing sugars ranging from 74.82 to 85.66%,7.44 to 10.51%, 5.80 to 6.63%, 0.39 to 0.69%, 71.87% to 76.36%, 9.51 to 12.78%,41.60% to 46.93%, 7.27 to 8.68%, 2.07 to 2.99% and 4.81 to 5.89%, respectively in Arvi ccillections whereas, in Alocasia collections variations in these parameters were observed from 71.92 to 86.50%, 7.44% to 11.82%, 5.98% to 7.61%, 0.32 to 0.74%, 69.31 to 74.08%, 9.83 to 13.10%, 44.03 to 56.12%, 6.98 to 10.88%, 2.08 to 3.46%, and 4.16 to 7.22% in that order. Cummulative rating of Colocasia and Alocasia corm collections based on prominent biochemical indices showed that collections C-3, C-7 and C-6 of Colocasia and AC-9, AC-5 and AC-7 corm collections of Alocasia emerged superior in order of preference from nutritional Quality point of view.