Nutritional analysis of Vegetable Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] accessions in Eastern India

Meghana Devireddy^1,2Rachana K S^1,2Rabi Sankar Pan^1*Sandeep Kumar^3*SUJIT KUMAR BISHI⁴Danish Jawed⁴Mahesh Kumar Mahatma⁵Meenu Kumari¹Reshma Shinde¹Dr Brij Bihari Sharma^2,6Akshay Talukdar²Prakash Kumar⁷Ankit Kumar Sinha²Ramakrishnan Madhavan Nair⁸ANIL DAHUJA²Anup Das¹

• ¹ICAR-Research Complex for Eastern Region, Farming System Research Centre for Hill and Plateau Region, Plandu, Ranchi 834010, Jharkhand, India, Ranchi, India
• ²ICAR - Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India
• ³National Institute of Secondary Agriculture, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ranchi, India
• ⁴ICAR - Indian Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Ranchi, India
• ⁵ICAR - National Research Centre on Seed Spices, Ajmer, India
• ⁶Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, India
• ⁷ICAR - Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India
• ⁸AVRDC World Vegetable Center South Asia, Hyderabad, India

Vegetable soybean holds significant promise for the food industry and in combating malnutrition. However, its nutritional profile has been less studied compared to that of the mature soybean. Identifying genotypes with higher nutritional value and lower antinutritional factors is essential for addressing nutritional deficiencies, mitigating potential adverse effects on health, and enhancing the crop's overall acceptability. Hence, this study advanced the biochemical analysis of vegetable soybean genotypes, focusing on both nutritional and functional traits, including macronutrients and bioactive compounds, viz., isoflavones, tocopherols, trypsin inhibitor activity, oil content, and fatty acid composition. The findings reveal significant variations among genotypes for these nutritional parameters, with some exhibiting multiple desirable traits. For instance, certain genotypes exhibited high isoflavone content, high oleic acid, and low linoleic acid, without compromising on tocopherol content. Interestingly, most of the genotypes had high monounsaturated and low polyunsaturated fatty acids in contrast to grain soybean, which is desirable for oil industries owing to the oxidative stability of the extracted oil. The identification of these cultivars offers substantial potential for future breeding programs focused on developing nutritionally superior vegetable soybean genotypes which could play a crucial role in alleviating malnutrition in the Eastern Plateau and Hill Region (EPHR) of India.