Effect of biofortification with iron and zinc on production, accumulation of heavy metals and biomolecules in lettuce

Lettuce (Parris Island), is a leafy crop native to southern Europe and western Asia. Evaluate the yield, nutraceutical quality and lead accumulation in the production of lettuce (Parris Island), Biofortified with iron and zinc in combination established by NFT. The experiment consisted under five mixed treatments at different concentrations of iron+zinc of 0, 25, 50, 100 and 200 µmol L-1. The variables analyzed in performance were: Total fresh weight, root fresh weight, stem fresh weight, leaf fresh weight, number of leaves, root height, plant height, and leaf height. Statistical differences are only observed in the treatments with 50 µmol L-1 and checkpoint. The nutraceutical variables that we analyzed were: chlorophylls a and b, the highest was with 50 µmol L-1, carotenoids in the five treatments stood out unlike the control, total iron the concentration of 200 µmol L-1 absorbed 1.2 mg L-1 and total zinc the concentration of 50 µmol L-1 with an absorption of 2.52 mg L-1, antioxidant capacity the concentration of 25 µmol L-1 with 1.895 mg EAA g-1 FW. Accumulation of heavy metals in leaves did not show toxicity in 100 g of sample, the nutraceutical quality in concentrations of 25 and 100 µmol L-1 were the ones that stood out, in addition to the levels of chlorophylls 50 and 100 µmol L-1, the presence of lead and arsenic in lettuce leaves, when the concentrations increase further, the accumulation decreases and cadmium stabilizes.