Abstract:
Teff (Eragrostis tef) is an indigenous crop plant in Ethiopia, where it was originated. It provides
the most staple food Injera for most Ethiopians. The aim of this study was to determine the
concentration of seven essential metals (Mg, Fe, Ni, Mn, Cu, Zn and Cr) and two non-essential
metals (Pb and Cd) in red teff samples collected from three different sites (Aroriya, Anfargie and
Nekosa) of Simada Woreda. A 0.5 g of oven dried samples were wet digested using 3 ml HNO3
(65-70 %) and 2 ml H2O2 (30 %) for 2:30 hours at the temperature of 120 ° C and determination
was made by ICP-OES. The method was validated by excellent recovery result in the range of
89-105%. Excel and SPSS software was used to calculate and compare the mean concentration
of metals. The average concentration of metals in all studied sites expressed in mg/kg dry weight
of teff were Mg (1747±4.48), Cr (84±0.52), Fe (518±2.56), Mn (108±0.83), Ni (52±0.34), Cu
(5.5±0.05), Zn (37±0.09), Cd (0.9±0.01) and Pb (1.9±0.04). Among the studied metals, Mg was
found to be of the highest level of concentration in all red teff sampling sites. Analysis of
variance indicates that no significant difference between the mean concentrations of Fe, Mn and
Pb among the Aroriya and Nekosa teff samples, but there was a significant difference for the
other studied metals among the corresponding red teff samples at 95% confidence level. The
results indicated that teff grain is a good source of essential nutrients compared to wheat,
sorghum, barley, maize, and rice which are alternatively used in Ethiopia