Comparison of nutrient composition of wild Dioscorea species consumed by ethnic groups of Odisha in India with commercially cultivated roots and tubers

Abstract

This study was carried out to analyze the nutrient composition of wild tubers belonging to Dioscorea genus of the Dioscoreaceae family consumed by the ethnic groups in the Jeypore District of Koraput region in Odisha, India. The collected tubers are significant storehouses of energy and nutrition and also, they are known to produce large quantities of energy in relatively less time than the other crops. We have selected six wild species of Dioscorea collected from Odisha among the twenty-six reported species of India, along with five locally available cultivated tuber varieties of different genera from Tamil Nadu markets for comparison. The objective of this study is to understand the major source of nutrition of the ethnic groups, who consume local plant varieties collected from the wild and also to compare them with that of commercially available cultivated varieties in the view of the prevailing biodiversity and the varied agro-climatic conditions in India.