Partitioning of nutritional and phytochemical constituents in nine Adzuki bean genotypes from Australia

With an increasing demand for the efficient use of farmland resources, there is growing interest in value-adding to crops through using them or their by-products in various food processing industries. Adzuki bean is one emerging crop which shows promise for use in the value-adding chain; however, there is limited information on the phytochemical contents of various parts of this plant when grown under Australian conditions. Consequently, this study investigated the within-plant partitioning of nutritional and phytochemical constituents in nine newly developed adzuki bean genotypes from Australia. The crop took about 80–85 days to reach maturity and showed moderate to high protein and gross energy contents in both the seed (20–25%, and 16–17 MJ/kg) and leaf (19–24% and 16–18 MJ/kg) material. The leaves also showed high levels of phenolics and antioxidants, which may be linked to improved health or growth rates if fed to livestock. Additionally, the adzuki bean seedcoat contained exceptionally high concentrations of phenolics and antioxidant compounds, indicating high potential health benefits of this crop for humans. However, there was also a significant difference in the level of health-benefitting and nutritional compounds between the different genotypes. These results support the prospect of using adzuki bean as a future high-value crop for the Central Queensland region.