Characterization of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Cultivars based on Nutritional Profiling and Chemometric Analysis

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important and rich source of legume protein which is commonly used in place of animal protein among vegetarian diets. The aim of the present study was to determine the nutritional quality of sixteen genotypes of chickpea viz. DCP-92-3, RSG-888, RSG-963, JG-130 (K), JG-16, Annigiri-1, Vijay, Vishal, JG-130 (J), JG-11, JG-63, KPG-59, NDG-8-202, PG0–43, RKG-137 and CSJ-595 which were analyzed for their biochemical composition grown under rainfed conditions. Among different nutritional parameters in chickpea the soluble protein, crude protein, fat, carbohydrate, ash, total soluble sugar, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar and calorific value were studied and the values ranged from 14.35 to 19.88%, 19.74 to 27.55%, 4.12 to 6.16%, 64.04 to 69.13%, 2.16 to 3.16%, 4.15 to 7.16%, 0.97 to 1.69%, 3.17 to 5.48% and 334.63 to 382.90K cal/100g, respectively. Chemometric tools like principal component analysis (PCA) were applied to understand the possible classification of chickpea genotypes based on biochemical and nutritional properties.