Abstract:
Teff, (Eragrostis tef), Ethiopia’s earliest indigenous staple food, is one of essential crops for
food, farm income and nutrition security in Ethiopia. Teff is very nutritious and is an important
part of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage and national identity. In this study, the concentration of
selected essential (Mg, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu and Zn) and non-essential (Cd and Pb) metals were
determined in red teff samples collected from in Enemay Wereda, East Gojjam Zone, Amahara
Region using ICP-OES. The results were compared with the metal concentrations of teff verities
and other cereals. after proper sample pretretment 0.5 g of oven-dried red teff sample was
digested with an optimized wet-digestion procedure using 3 mL of HNO3 (69-70%) and 2 mL
H2O2 (30%) at 120 °C for 2:30 h.. The method was validated by its linear range in the
concentration range of 0.05-5.05 ppm and the optimized procedure was evaluated by spiking
experiment; the percentage recoveries ranged from 80 to 120%, indicating good accuracy. The
concentrations of metals (mg/kg) in red teff samples from the five study farmlands ranged Mg
(1,599 - 1,830 mg/kg), Fe (167 - 2,341 mg/kg), Mn (49.4 - 139mg/kg), Zn (27.5 - 73.5 mg/kg),
Cr (1.2 - 41.9 mg/kg), Ni (8.6 - 24.3 mg/kg) and Cu (6.0 - 21.3 mg/kg). Among the metals
identified Mg was found to be the highest determined metal in the samples of all five sites.
Hence, Mg is the most abundant element followed by Fe and Mn. However, the non-essential
metal Pb and Cd were not detection at all. One-way ANOVA revealed significant differences (p
< 0.05) among the mean concentrations of metals in all red teff samples.