Relationships between amino acid composition and nitrogen of foxtail (Italian) millet (Setaria italica) grain of different varieties

The amino acid composition of 13 samples of foxtail millet (Setaria italica L) from six Chinese and one French varieties was determined as a function of their N content (N), which ranged from 1·82 to 3·65 g per 100 g of grain DM. The levels of amino acids in grain DM increased linearly with N with correlation coefficients close to 1 for most of them regardless of foxtail millet genotype or phenotype. Thus simply knowing N enables one to predict the amino acid composition of any foxtail millet grain sample. Amino acids in crude protein of grain (g 16 g−1N)changed as quadratic functions of N, which decreased for glycine, cysteine, tysine, histidine and arginine, remained nearly constant for valine, threonine, tyrosine, methionine and aspartate plus asparagine, and increased for other amino acids. Foxtail millet appeared as the only cereal in which lysine is the only limiting essential amino acid. However, the lysine score was low and intermediate between that of maize and sorghum, falling from 48 to 31 % when N increased from 1·82 to 3·65 g per WO g DM. The N-to-protein conversion factor strongly increased with N and was the highest of all cereals within the N range studied. The results also showed that the composition of storage proteins accumulated in grains remained constant, with a prolamin to glutelin ratio close to three and independent of grain protein content.